Raquel de Castro Maia has a unique illustration style that is flexible and adaptable. She prides herself in producing illustrations that are unique and creative. Purpose underpins her work. Her illustrations have been used as creative signature for clients in various different sectors. She has the ability to communicate through her illustrations the ideas and vision of the specific clients that they have been created for.
Raquel’s illustration work has been used in branding, corporate identities, marketing materials, signage, wallpapers in hotel interiors, exhibition stand graphics, car signage, books and websites to name a few applications.
Although she is based in Cape Town, she has successfully established close working relationships with clients in various parts of the world, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, Botswana, Namibia, United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland, Zanzibar, Germany and Qatar to name a few international locations.
DRAWING, HAND RENDERED OR VECTOR ILLUSTRATION
The Act Of Making Marks
Illustration or drawing (verb) is the act of making marks on a surface to create an image, a form or a shape. We see drawing and illustration as the root of all creative processes and the finished products of our work would not exist without this basis.
Illustration is a fundamental part of all processes at Raquel’s studio, it is a skill that has become her signature and that informs everything that we do. Every project, be it branding, graphic design or website design, starts with an illustration of some sort. The final product often bears the elements of our signature as most of our work encompasses hand rendered illustrations or vector based illustrations that are created in-studio.
We work in various different styles of illustration ranging from traditional hand rendered illustration, technical drawing, photomontage and photo manipulation through to the more modern graphic vector illustration. This is usually dictated by the purpose of the project, the technical requirements of the final finished media, the aesthetic of the client or the style of the brand.
Illustration being the basis of everything we do is applicable to all design media. We use drawing in all our projects and often incorporate the drawings that we have developed across all the marketing materials that we develop for our clients. For example, we would roll out the illustrations developed for printed stationery across brochures, signage, websites and exhibition stand graphics. The illustrations are not only our signature but become the signature of your brand or corporate identity of your product.
All our graphics and illustrations are unique; everything we do is done in studio and developed bespoke for each project, brand or client.
