Margarida Fleming is a successful artist who has exhibited at various galleries across the city. She is also a talented graphic designer working in Broadway Malyan’s Lisbon studio.
Graphic design applies to a host of different things in an architectural practice, from a simple graphic in a carpet to the complexity of a wayfinding strategy. We can completely transform the communication of a project, making it visually interesting and more easily understood as clarity and creativity are the best way to capture the client’s attention.
A key challenge for the graphic designer is creating brand identities for architectural projects that are coherent and harmonious, identities that reinforce a project’s strength and bring a concept alive.
Bringing a background of painting on canvas to graphic design undoubtedly makes it easier to transmit a creative idea – the two disciplines work well together with one side inspiring the other.
Visitors enjoying the work of artist and Broadway Malyan
Graphic Designer Margarida Fleming
Architecture itself is an art of solving different problems that has to be both beautiful and functional at the same time. However, the utilitarian considerations are vastly more important to the success of a building than its outward appearance.
Equally an architect will use many of the same skills as an artist – they need to understand space and in particular how people will react emotionally to their designs. They also need a good sense for materials, line, form and proportion from an aesthetic perspective. When I studied architecture I started to be more conscious of the process, which in turn made the painting process more difficult because it became more structured rather than natural and intuitive – perhaps this is the true difference between art and architecture.
A poster for Margarida Fleming’s first solo exhibition in Lisbon