My logo reveals so many stories. Please pause and look at it.
- Part I -
I worked in Advertising for 12 years in Rio. I guess most of you know this. A nice, exciting, chapter of my life, that connected me forever with Rio and some friends that are very important to me.
The transition from the “crazy”, busy world of Advertising to Jewelry Design was not obvious or straightforward. I had a very long (professionally speaking) pause in between these two worlds.
My “pause” included leaving my country, getting married, becoming a Mother, living in 2 other different countries (and 3 very exciting cities), making new friends, and traveling to new places, not necessarily in this order. It is like my brain pressed the reset button and my career (that I used to love) just stopped making sense to me.
When I needed a name, a logo, something to present my Jewelry as a business, I called friends for help. I could not even decide “is this Anna Schoellerman Jewelry, Anna Machado, Anna Karla? … or another completely different name?” My brain did not “speak” advertising or marketing anymore. I was a bit amused by that.
My close friend and designer Isabella Torquato offered to do my logo. I promptly accepted. She knows me so well. She can just do it. She worked, for even more years in Advertising than I did, as an Art Director in Ad Agencies, and she naturally asked me for a “Briefing”. “What? Do I really have to do it?” Yes, I spent 12 years writing briefings for my clients to the creative department. Why would be so challenging to write one for my own business? I just could not do it. I could not treat my Jewelry as a business at that point. I could not write a professional briefing establishing my goals and objectives, “what do I want my consumers to think or feel?” and some of the questions from the past that kept popping in my head just did not make any sense anymore.
I just sat in front of my e-mail and wrote to her something like “ I am sorry. I do not know how to write a briefing anymore. But I can tell you these pieces of stories/memories that might help you figure this out.”
And these are parts (not everything) of the long email I wrote to her in 2016 (note that this was written before I made my collections. I only had a few pieces designed /made at that time). It started like this:
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“You are obsessed with lines. And this is not a bad thing”.
This is what my GIA Jewelry Design teacher told me in one of my classes. I think she is right. She made me see and realize that all my references are linear in one way or another.
I still don’t know how much this will influence my work, but it made me stop and think and go back to my past. It made me realize my close relationship with lines, literally yarns and threads. This is probably burned into my brain, and I am not sure if I can someday “escape” from it. I still don’t have a “line” of jewelry and I have no idea how my “line” of work will be because I am still experimenting with so many things. So, I had to go deep to try to write you these things…
My first memories are certainly of a world of threads, yarns, reels, spools, balls of wool, buttons… My maternal Grandpa was a tailor. My Grandma was a teacher, but all her free time was spent on her hobby – she was an amazing embroidery artist, always working on something beautiful and colorful. My paternal Grandma was also an artist on her crochet, constantly making something new. I loved to watch all that world of lines being transformed, right in front of my eyes, into flowers, leaves, and so many beautiful things. My Mom was also very talented in designing and making her own clothes (and mine too)… I used to play with these yarns a lot. That were not many options of toys at their houses for me to play with it anyway.“
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This email goes on and on about all my experiences and connections with lines.
Since I had to write a long introduction before even getting to the email, I will stop here and will make a “Part 2” of this email so you can take the whole story in “little chapters”.
Love,
Anna.