Camilo Rojas
July 16th, 2010
My name is Juan Camilo Rojas, a Colombian-born, Miami based Graphic Designer Graduated from New World School of the Arts. My work is mainly based on typography and experimenting with it as an Art form. My work seeks to connect with the viewers to communicate a certain message and to make them think, analyze, and build a link with the work.
Outside of my normal job, or daily activities, lies my commitment to social change. Using my design and creative talents I want to create awareness and help solve problems that affect our society and the world. I want to do it in a way that entertains and embraces people through positive change. This is a work in progress; I actually still think I could change the world. Maybe… well, hopefully help humanity move towards a sustainable existence, starting in my own home and community.
I also like learning and having fun with my work. Playfulness is very important and motivates me by pushing my work to new places, new levels. That point may be reached by making mistakes, and often finding solutions by simple accidents.
Enjoy
Enjoy is part of an installation series created to expose audiences to a particular idea through the power of typography and demonstrate how it could communicate and represent outside of the usual screen and print based forms.In this case the idea was to bring the attention and create awareness to the damages of drinking soda, or “enjoying soda”.
The piece was created using a word normally associated and related to the brand being criticized and to a good feeling. However, the piece was created using over 18,000 nails spelling the word “enjoy”, rusted using soda. I decided to use nails to counter act against the positive feeling of the word “enjoy” and rusted them with soda to show the damages of drinking it.
Flavor
This piece was created using over 3,800 cigarettes that spell the word “flavor”. The cigarettes are half smoked showing the nicotine in them; in total, this piece has a size of 24”H x 48”W. Even though it mainly criticizes a specific cigarette brand, Flavor was born to create awareness of the damages of smoking cigarettes.
The word Flavor was chosen to portray the main marketing tactic of this brand, which was made popular by its slogan of the best in flavor, and of keeping its authentic flavor when filtered cigarettes were first introduced in the market.
Gold
Gold is a piece that criticizes a very popular fast food company and the huge obesity problem faced in our society. The piece was created by using the popular golden French fries.
The word chosen “gold” has different meanings, it portrays the main color of the logo of this company, the color of the popular fries and it also portrays the associations made between the brand and society, especially the marketing campaigns which depicts this food as something very desirable, especially for kids, creating a society with really bad eating habits that have lead to an obesity problem.
Keep Our Beaches Clean Campaign
This campaign was created with the idea to reach and appeal to all audiences, with its human approach as an alternative. Besides, in a very positive way it engaging people to cooperate with a problem that affects us all, showing of a positive solution, instead of portraying only the problem. I still believe that one single idea could bring forth change.
Travel
Clothing, Carry On Luggage. It’s a piece from the book Things to do, and created in honor of my number one passion, traveling, which allows me not just to Head out of the country, but out of my comfort zone, adventure never happens when you’re comfortable. The image is completely real, no Photoshop used except color correction.
More Info: www.camilorojas.net