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Chefe do Ano

Task
Create the visual identity and campaign system for Chefe do Ano 2026, balancing culinary prestige with a contemporary, energetic tone. The identity needed to work across print, digital and motion formats while remaining recognisable and adaptable.
Solution
I developed a bold visual system built around strong typography, modular compositions and a flexible graphic language. The identity was designed to scale across campaign posters, social media, event materials and animated assets, creating a coherent system rather than a set of isolated pieces.
Client
Edições do Gosto
Year
2026
Role
Art direction, Design
Scope
Identity · Digital · Print · Animation
Instagram
@chefedoano
The Chefe do Ano 2026 key visual: a gloved hand in a white chef's sleeve holds a gilded pear dripping molten gold over a white plate, against an orange field of the words CHEFE DO ANO repeated in heavy black capitals and cropped by the edges of the sheet.

Concepts

Direction 1, Duality of Mastery: a chef in full whites standing front-on, reproduced as a coarse halftone and split down the vertical centre — the left half of the sheet white, the right half deep azulejo blue, the figure reversing out of each. A thin orange rectangle frames the torso, with 2026 set at its top-left and bottom-right corners and the circular CHEFE DO ANO seal across the chest.
Duality of MasteryHalftone chef split male / female · azulejo + mid-century poster

Selected by the client

Direction 2, Alchemy of Taste: a black-gloved hand in a white chef's sleeve holds a gilded pear over a white plate, gold running off it in long threads, against an amber field of the words CHEFE DO ANO repeated in heavy black capitals and cropped by every edge of the sheet. The circular seal sits in the bottom-right corner with the year.
Alchemy of TasteGilded pear on a white plate, orange field of cropped type
Direction 3, The Trace: a chef's white jacket draped over the back of an orange wooden chair with a toque resting on the seat, against a pale grey wall. 2026 is set above in an orange script, CHEFE DO ANO under it in black slab capitals, and the circular seal sits small in the bottom-right corner.
The TraceUniform on an empty chair — presence in absence

Identity system

Typography

Display face carries the campaign; numerals are a second voice.

Anisette Std ExBold specimen: a band of the display face set so tight the letters almost touch and cropped top and bottom by the edge of the band, so only the middle of CHEFE reads — heavy, flat-sided art-deco capitals alternating black on brand orange and orange on black.
Anisette Std ExBold · display, headline compositionWide, flat-sided art-deco grotesque — set tight and cropped by the edge of the sheet.
The year set in Ethnocentric Regular and rotated to read vertically down the outer right edge of the poster, black on brand orange, against the cropped display type of the field.
Ethnocentric Regular · numeralsUsed only for the year, set vertically at the outer edge. Both are Adobe Fonts, so the licence travels with the client.

Colour

Three flat colours plus gold as a material, not a fill.

Brand orange#E74011The field.
Black#000000Type, and the shadow under the sleeve.
White#FFFFFFThe plate, and the chef whites.
Gold#CFAF52Sampled from the object, not a flat colour.

Print values come from the CMYK master — don't convert from screen.

Graphic language

Type builds the field — it is background, pattern and headline at once.

Repetition: CHEFE DO ANO set in heavy black capitals and repeated line after line down the orange field until the words stop reading as language and become texture.
RepetitionThe name repeats down the whole field
Cropping: the display capitals run off every edge of the frame, so only the middle of each letterform is visible and no word is ever fully contained.
CroppingLetters run off every edge — never fully contained
The seal: the circular CHEFE DO ANO lock-up, its letters set around a ring and reversed in white out of the brand orange, cropped by the edge of the frame.
SealCircular lock-up as a secondary mark

Image treatment

One hero object, studio-lit, no environment.

The hero object: a hand in a black glove and a white chef's sleeve holds a gilded pear over a white plate, against the orange type field. Studio-lit, with no environment behind it.
Gilded object on a white plate, black glove, chef whites.
A detail of the same shot, cropped close: molten gold runs off the pear and over the glove, then falls past the rim of the plate in long threads.
Gold as liquid — the drip is the campaign's signature.

Composition

The rule any new format has to keep.

The composition diagram: the key visual overlaid with a thin red circle drawn around the plate and a dashed red line down the vertical centre of the sheet, showing the hero object centred on that axis and sitting in the upper half, with the year at the top right and the seal in the lower right corner.
The five rules on one frame.
  • Hero object centredOn the vertical axis, in the upper half
  • Type field behindRuns edge to edge, cropped on all four sides
  • Year at the outer edgeVertical, top right
  • Seal in the free cornerOpposite the sleeve
  • Nothing else entersNo environment, no secondary imagery

Motion principle

The object is animated — the field is not.

Motion beat one: the gloved hand and white sleeve are open in the orange type field with nothing resting on them yet.
01 Plate slides inHand open, nothing on it
Motion beat two: the white plate has arrived on the hand and the gilded pear has come down onto it, still clean, with no gold running yet.
02 Pear descendsEnters from above the frame
Motion beat three: gold runs down from the pear over the glove and begins to fall past the plate.
03 Gold pours downFrom the stem, not all at once
The five-second campaign animation: the plate slides in on the open gloved hand, the gilded pear descends onto it, gold pours from the stem and falls in long threads, and the clip settles on the key visual. The orange type field behind never moves.
04 Final animationFinal frame = the key visual

Field locked: the background measures #E63F11 at both ends of the clip · 5 s · 24 fps.

Applications

The same master, re-cropped — not redrawn.

The 50 × 70 cm campaign poster: the full key visual, the type field cropped on all four sides, the year vertical at the top right and the seal in the lower right corner.
Poster 50 × 70.
The square social crop: the same master re-cropped to 1:1, plate and pear held centre, the year still at the top right and the seal in the lower right.
Social 1:1.
The vertical story crop: the tallest format, the type field running the full height with the plate and pear centred in it and the seal at the bottom right.
Story 9:16.
The landscape signage crop: the widest format, the plate and pear held centre with the year at the top right, the type field cut hard on every side.
Signage 16:9.
The ten-metre banner: an extreme horizontal crop with CHEFE DO ANO set twice in heavy black capitals, once at each end, and 2026 reversed in white across the centre — the gloved hand and the gilded pear sitting inside the numerals.
Banner 10 × 0.9 m · dye-sublimation on mesh · bancada de cozinha.

Handover

  • Prepress — CMYK · PDF/X-4 · 3 mm bleed · print-ready exports.
  • Out of scope — screen printing, menu design.