mishmash creatives: Oupas Design

Your studio was born out of a passion you all had in common. How did a passion project turn into a professional endeavour? 

Joana: We felt we had to do something right as we got out of college. When it was time to leave there was a huge unemployment crisis in our country and we knew the future wasn’t that bright for us if we were going to be looking into areas that we deeply enjoyed, that was just the reality. While looking at jobs we would like to be hired for, we decided to jump at it and do projects that we really cared about. Working with our hands was something we all enjoyed doing.

Cidália: At the beginning, we didn’t have any expectations towards the project, of it becoming specialized in paper and cardboard or even of it becoming something serious. 

Sofia: At the start, we were lucky enough to have our college teachers supporting us and helping us with everything we needed, like a special place at the faculty that was lent to us for an incubation period. The paper and cardboard theme was totally by chance, as one of our first projects briefings was to develop a concept for a shop window only used to exhibit artists. We already enjoyed doing crafty things but the window display was a great opportunity for us to showcase our favourite way of working, as we had total freedom to create.

Ten years have gone by since you first started. How have your processes has a team evolved over time?

Sofia: We started this without any plans and everything we developed, in the beginning, was with a trial and error mindset. We used a lot of intuition at the start.

Cidália: We also had no idea of space or even how to showcase work proposals to clients. It was always very two-dimensional and our work right now is completely the opposite of that.

Sofia: Along the way, we started investing our time in learning three-dimensional tools and that totally transformed the way we build our pieces and how we structure everything. We continue to invest a lot of our time in continuous learning.

What do you think influenced you to choose paper has the main character of your work?

Sofia: Paper and cardboard were easy materials to get hold of and easy to handle, besides being cheaper materials than usual. It was also fun working with such humble material and turning it into something appealing. For the most part, I think it was an easiness to getting hold of the material that we could experiment a lot with just glue and scissors. 

Cidália: I also think it’s a very easy material to recycle and we like that. We develop pieces for events that only take one day with enormous decorations and then the materials are going to waste. The cardboard has the advantage of being effortlessly recycled.

Joana: It also happens that in some events people want to grab some of the decorations and take them home! On a project we developed for TEDxYouth@Porto people could literally go on stage and grab whatever they wanted at the end of the conferences, which made a lot of people happy. We still have random people showing us that they have some pieces from the beginning of Oupas at their homes and that’s crazy.

We can assume everything paper related plays a big role in your day-to-day. What do you think is the future of paper?

Joana: I think it starts gaining more novelty as it becomes more precious. It starts being more special having a particular notebook and people start giving more value to those small things. A few decades ago everything was developed on paper and any paper was good enough, and its importance wasn’t something we really thought about.

Sofia: I think that even though digital tools are here, the paper will always have a special place in our hearts. With digitalization, we tend to think very strategically on what we really need to print first, and don’t mess up with things that don’t need it. We almost don’t produce garbage and we handle paper with a lot of respect in order not to waste any of it. It’s not a bad time for the paper, on the contrary, because we are filtering what we didn’t need and we are only keeping the necessary parts.

How does your creative process start? How do you start a new project?

Sofia: Inevitably with the client’s briefing. From that, we understand if there are already some ideas in their minds or if they are coming to us without any references. After the briefing, we do a lot of research and look for different approaches. We share everything with the team and afterwards, we start drafting some ideas, usually on paper and with mood boards. After the client’s approval, we get our ideas into a three-dimensional mock-up and the final step is planning and developing the real piece coming back to paper again, just as we started.

Often we feel pressured to be constantly having new ideas. Do you think that being creative is synonymous with having ideas all the time? 

Sofia: I wish! Or maybe not. It must be daunting having ideas all the time. Sometimes we can feel the pressure especially as the days got shorter every day. Deadlines are definitely a pressure point and some clients just don’t understand that we need time to mature some of our ideas.

Joana: Our main advantage is that we are a team of three and we can develop the ideas of one another. As a team, we are used to crossing references and ideas and things are more easily developed when we all discuss them.

Tell us about your workspace. Is it tidy or chaotic? What’s on your desk right now?

Joana: At the moment is quite organised but there are moments of total chaos. We just finished a very big project last week so we cleaned everything already. When developing bigger pieces sometimes we can’t even walk inside the office. There’s a lot of junk layering around!

Sofia: But I also think is a kind of disorganised organization. We know where everything is. At the end of the day, we like to clean everything and start fresh the next day but only if our work changes. We need them in the same order every day so we are more practical and keep working faster.

The tools we use are often idea stimulators that help us do our best work. What are the tools you swear by? 

Sofia: We have two different tables, the working table for cutting and glueing, and desk space with the digital tools we need. On the desk space, we can’t work without a notepad and our computer. On the big table, we have loads of x-act and scissors, cutting boards and rulers! Those are our essentials.

There’s a living debate on the importance of creativity and how it plays out in different professions. What do you think should be our role as creatives? 

Joana: As I’m the only one connected to the arts field in my family, distant cousins and aunts always find it hard to understand what I do on a daily basis. I think all our work in this life is important, especially in the marketing and design area, we are the bridge between the message and the end-consumer. 

Sofia: We are the messengers and I think people find it hard to understand that. As they have everything already in their hand and have always seen everything visually, they forget who makes it. We pass on messages and the way we do it influences how people live.

Joana: I think creativity generates creativity and that isn't something that's left for artsy people only. A doctor can be listening to a song that touches him somehow, and his work might be empowered by that. People forget creativity is not something connected merely to our work, but to everyone. All artists areas are important to each other in the way they inspire each other. We are sharing a little bit of ourselves.