How Gilberto Gil united the best in Brazilian design

Throughout this year, Gilberto Gil, one of Brazil’s greatest composers and performers, announced that he would give his final concert before retiring at the age of 83. Named after one of his songs, the Tempo Rei (literally: “King Time”) tour is traveling through stadiums in Brazil’s major cities, drawing thousands and stirring a wave of national emotion.

Although it may seem unusual to discuss a concert in a design column, this show is a visual spectacle as well as a musical one. Its scenography consists entirely of an innovative and exuberant installation featuring motion graphics designed by Radiográfico studio.

Gil invited screenwriter and film/TV director Rafael Dragaud to oversee the artistic direction of the show. Rafael was immediately faced with a challenge: how to stage a production of this scale for an artist known for his daring music and persona, yet deeply committed to the essence of his art and inclined towards stripped-back performances, free of superfluous effects. Wisely, he teamed up with Daniela Thomas — an artist, film director, playwright, and set designer renowned for her consistently sensitive work across theatre, cinema, and the visual arts. She had previously taken on projects of similar scale, having co-directed and designed the sets for the opening ceremony of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Reflecting on Gil’s poetics and the theme of the show, the passage of time, Daniela proposed a formal gesture and a key visual concept: a vortex suspended at the centre of the stage. It soon became clear that, for the idea to work on a production of this scale, the vortex would need to display images, as would the entire backdrop.

The concept brought with it several technical challenges: first, designing a spiral structure of the appropriate physical scale and light enough to be suspended (ultimately solved through the use of aluminium trusses); then, sourcing LED panels that were light, thin, flexible, and high-resolution enough to cover up the vortex.

The second part of the challenge was taken on by Radiográfico, a highly experienced and talented design studio led by Olívia Ferreira and Pedro Garavaglia, which has collaborated on numerous projects with Daniela Thomas (including the Olympics). The duo was tasked with filling the two spirals that made up the vortex with images, each with a front and back. These visuals had to be perfectly synchronised with the large screen in the background and the two side screens, which were primarily used to display real-time footage of the stage and audience. In São Paulo, the stadium also featured a LED ring encircling the arena, all of it integrated into a massive video installation.

The team needed a 3D model to simulate the relationship between the four spirals of the vortex and the backdrop, which would allow the images to be synchronised with each other and the music. For this, the duo used a software called Disguise, which Pedro says allowed them to mock-up how the vortex would behave in real-time. “This gave us control over the timing of the images running through it and enabled us to work with all the screens as a single, unified installation.”

After addressing the software and hardware technical issues, the team had only a few months to create short motion graphic films composed of five different tracks for each of the 30 songs in the show, which lasted around 2.5 hours. Following Rafael Dragaud’s guidance, each song would have its own narrative in tune with its concept and duration, without using looping, which he considered a “shortcut” incompatible with Gil’s poetics.

In addition to Pedro and Olívia, the Herculean task brought together the head designer Fernanda Guizan and a team of more than 18 people – most of them motion graphics designers – as well as a researcher (responsible for sourcing and clearing images), a technician managing the renders on a dedicated render farm, a finishing producer, and a specialist in LED and Disguise.

The video installations were developed using archival images, graphic elements inspired by the iconic album covers, and typographic play that engaged with the lyrics. The typeface Founders Grotesk and the colour palette were key elements in bringing identity to the whole.

Throughout the show, the audience is immersed in a variety of visual landscapes that align with the concept and mood of each song. The artistic director was careful not to let the abstract graphic language dominate, instead bringing the videos closer to the cinematic universe by using photography in a “scripted” way. The aim was to create density and evoke the human and emotional dimension that is so emblematic of Gilberto Gil’s poetics. The imagery repertoire combines historical records, such as scenes of repression during the 1960s military dictatorship in the protest song Cálice, with remarkable moments from the artist’s career and personal life. These include previously unseen images from his trip to Jamaica for the song honouring Bob Marley. There are also tributes to his mentors, exclusive testimonies from collaborators, and works by visual artists. Political issues permeate everything, which is a central aspect of Gil's work – he was even Minister of Culture from 2003-2008.

The typography is used in innovative ways that amplify the meaning of the lyrics, acting as a link between videos. For graphic designers in the audience, the visual result of the words spinning through the spiral, circling the arena, bouncing off the backdrop, playing with rhythm and scale, and echoing the choruses sung in unison by thousands, is a true moment of ecstasy.

Olívia and Pedro were also concerned with striking a balance between intense, dizzying moments and simple, intimate ones. Moments when everything is illuminated by a single colour, and moments when everything explodes. The image above shows the control panel with a thumbnail of each video in sequence. It offers a glimpse of the variety of visual vocabulary they assembled throughout the show.

The show as a whole is a stunning visual interpretation of the work of the brilliant artist Gilberto Gil – an artist who, alongside his fellow Tropicália collaborators, led an aesthetic revolution in Brazilian culture. It also stands as the well-deserved celebration of a composer who, throughout his life, has remained inquisitive and open to the new.

Gil has been a vortex that encapsulates the very best of Brazil. He moves between the depths of being and the distance of the stars, from the raft to quantum physics, from the ancestry of Black percussive music to the cosmopolitan pop of mass culture, passing through bossa nova and concrete poetry.

“Time and space navigating all the senses,” as a verse from the song Tempo Rei goes. The show is an immersive and moving experience of sensory integration and memory activation, at once deeply personal and shared with the crowd, all heightened by the collective experience of communion.

Closer look

Elaine shares unmissable stops on a tour of São Paulo’s musical and cultural scenes, plus an Instagram account to follow for more design inspiration.

• If you want to dig into Brazilian vinyl album covers and take a curious stroll through the city centre of São Paulo, make sure to wander through the Nova Barão galleries – home to most of the vinyl shops on the first floor – and the iconic Galeria do Rock.

• Also located in the city centre, Casa de Francisca is a beautifully restored historic townhouse and one of the best venues in São Paulo to experience live music, showcasing the finest in contemporary Brazilian sounds – all that, plus great food and excellent drinks.

• The Brazilian design scholar and collector Chico Homem de Melo has launched an Instagram account dedicated to showcasing rare pieces from his collection. It’s well worth following.

• The exhibition Pop Brasil: Vanguard and New Figuration, 1960-70 is currently on view at the Pinacoteca do Estado. This extensive show brings together 250 works by more than 100 artists and is a must-see for lovers of graphic language.