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Kako

by Tiffany Meyers

Don’t be a typical American and ask Kako where his last name went. It might seem peculiar in the U.S., but Brazilian artists frequently go by their first or last names, or nicknames, when it comes to their work. Kako was born Franco D’Angelo Bergamini, but the family called him “Caco,” and he and his brother were known as the kids in the neighborhood who could draw.

H

is parents kept a houseful of books, art supplies and a video camera, which sparked Kako’s lifelong passion for film.

At around age twelve, he and his brother began studying in the afternoons with Domingos Takeshita, also known as tak, an artist who ran Estúdio Pinheiros, a local comic-book school. At least, that’s how he billed it.

Takeshita wasn’t exactly teaching color theory, not in any official way. Instead, his small group of pupils watched movies, read books and hashed out the meaning of life. They drew some, too.

Takeshita encouraged them to observe the world and have nuanced discussions about complex subjects. “He wanted us to be authors,” Kako recalls, “and ‘creative beings,’ as he used to say.

That was the difference between his classes and the other schools in Brazil. Comic books were just a way to connect with us easily.

“Yes,” Kako adds, speaking over Skype from his São Paulo studio, “he was my Mr. Miyagi.”

After school, Kako put in stints at an advertising production company and then as a fine-art student at the University of São Paulo, working on illustration commissions all the while, but only as a side note. He dropped out of art school (“wrong place, wrong time,” he says) to pursue graphic design, teaching at Takeshita’s school simultaneously. Then, in the early 2000s, he tried his hand at Web design.

If there were such a thing as a Brazilian Buddha, Kako would be it. So the varied career moves didn’t stem from a lack of direction. The opposite

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is true. “I wanted to experience everything without fear or regret,” he says. “It all adds up in the end.”

But in 2002, he happened to open his sketchbook, and its too-white pages screamed up at him: Where have you been? “I realized I hadn’t drawn anything for a year,” he says. “Not even a phone doodle.” It hit him, as Kako says in his unreasonably charming, intensely visual English, “like a big rock in the head.”

So he did what every self-respecting artist must at some point do. He quit his job, grew a beard and took up semi-permanent residency in his pajamas. Eventually, his brother, an art director with contacts, made some introductions. And illustration became his final career move—the one he stuck with for good.

Kako’s far-ranging editorial and advertising clients have included Playboy, Nike, Microsoft, Image Comics and Scholastic, among others.

Recognition has come from Communication Arts and, twice, Lürzer’s Archive 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide. Kako doesn’t like talking about awards, but with enough prodding he’ll concede that he also has a Gold Lion under his belt.

He calls his style “dark and dirty,” a good description of the tenor and tone of at least a lot of his work. He likes drama and contrast; that includes contrast between black and blood red, and between layers of raw texture and pristine line work.

Japanese Ukiyo-e prints appeal to Kako in part because of the emphasis on black line, but mostly because of the way those artists worked beyond the limitations of then-incipient printing technologies.

To replicate those tight parameters, he sticks to a restricted palette of colors, including blues, greens and neutral tones in the brown family, plus his signature reds and blacks.

Known for being professional and incredibly easy to work with (“I wish I could clone him,” says his rep Sari Schorr, owner, Levy Creative Management), Kako is most empowered as an artist when he connects personally to the material.

In some cases, his research is so intense he could probably send his client a master’s thesis along Right: “Two illustrations for ’Marianne,’ a short story created for the Eisner and Harvey Awards winner anthology Comic Book Tattoo, published by Image Comics.” Rantz Hoseley, Image Comics, client.

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Consumer Magazine Ads 1 Trey Phillips, art director Pete Valle, writer Doug Chapman, creative director Daria Perreault, designer Kelliher Samets Volk (Boston, MA), ad agency WMBR Radio, client 2 Maria Bernal/Jorge Pomareda, art directors Carlos Bretal/Jose Funegra, writers Maria Bernal/Jose Funegra, creative directors Laurence Klinger, chief creative officer Buenavista FotografĂ­a, photographer Jorge Pomareda, typographer Elizabeth Papasakelariou, project manager Pablo Miro, project director Milagros Delarosa, agency producer LĂĄpiz (Chicago, IL), ad agency Procter & Gamble, Gain, client 3 (series) Jaimes Zentil, art director Craig McIntosh, writer Ian MacKellar, creative director Shanghoon Jeong, photographer Evan Dermit/Jano Kirijian/Sam Robbins/Jaimes Zentil, typographers SGL, production company BBDO Toronto (Toronto, Canada), ad agency smart Canada, client

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Miscellaneous 1 (series) Carol Henderson, art director Jarl Olsen, writer Smugglers’ Inn (Minneapolis, MN), ad agency Blake’s Lotaburger, client “Blake’s Lotaburger is a hamburger chain with 75 locations throughout New Mexico. As famous as their signature green chile cheeseburgers are, the chain’s giant metal ‘Lotaman’ sign, featuring a man in red, white and blue holding a marquee board, are equally well-known. The marquee messages, in some cases, had been advertising the same ‘new’ menu items for years. When we got the idea we could use them to have a bit of fun, we wrote the kind of lines we would like to see. Some of them even related to food. The weird signs appeared in blogs. We got some buzz for our client and spent almost nothing.

After the signs were featured on the news, some of the store managers took to writing their own clever messages.

Shortly after, the signs went back to trumpeting menu items.”

2 (sales promotion) Sarah Lassiter-Mason, writer Mike Grice, chief creative officer Ross Clodfelter/Shane Cranford, designers Wildfire (Winston-Salem, NC), ad agency Wake Forest Athletics, client “The most successful quarterback in the history of Wake Forest University football recently graduated; instead of featuring an unproven lineup in the university’s marketing materials, Wildfire and Wake Forest Athletics created a fan-focused campaign. Modeled after a football playbook, this Fan Playbook captures the game day experience with an introductory locker room speech, the WFU fight song, a game of matching players to their numbers and WFU eye-black tattoos and a paper football. The weathered, textural design and language was inspired by the no-nonsense, old school coaching style of WFU head football coach Jim Grobe. Other pieces in the campaign include player/schedule cards, a senior/schedule poster, billboards, an e-blast, tickets and credentials and TV and print.”

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