Fighting Against Inequality Through Colours: La Sardina DIY Customized by Lucía Types

Lucía Types is a Spanish illustrator who aims to empower others with her creative and colorful designs. We loved her unique aesthetics and her strong, inclusive messages, so we asked her to customize our La Sardina DIY camera.

Hi Lucía, welcome! Could you please introduce yourself to our readers?

My name is Lucía and I’m an Andalusian illustrator who loves to empower people with creative and colorful messages that make everyone feel they are worthy.

I use my pencils to fight against inequality and to make visible sad realities like fatphobia or eating disorders, racism or mental health problems looking from a feminist, intersectional and trans-inclusive view.

I always try to show my vision of the world from a realistic perspective and talk about troubles I’ve lived firsthand, so I can express myself with my lettering pieces and my illustrations.

I get inspired thanks to my friends' and my experiences, by my favorite TV shows and music, my admired favorite artists or even my cute pets. I love trying different styles and using super bright colors no matter the technique: digital, serigraphy, markers or acrylics.

Tell us about your customized version of the La Sardina DIY camera. What was your inspiration/concept?

From the moment I received the camera I thought a vintage style design would be the best fit. For my generation, an analogue camera is a super vintage object and I was very excited to approach the design that way.

I'm a fan of tattoos and old school style flowers are one of my favorites, so it seemed like a really cool way to adorn the camera. Besides, I love drawing flowers, it relaxes me and makes me disconnect, and the moment of painting the camera seemed like a great occasion for that. We are so overwhelmed with work, always producing lately, that I needed to be able to enjoy this activity.

To give it even more my touch, I wanted to use bright pastel colors and a very chic and cute background for the photos. I love glitter!

What is your relationship with analogue photography?

This is a funny question for me, because the answer brings back memories of college. One of the first subjects I took when I studied my degree in Advertising was Analogue Photography...and I was terrible at it! At home they picked on me a bit because my grandfather worked professionally as a photographer when he was young and was very good at it. It certainly wasn't genetics. I failed the subject a couple of times until I started to enjoy it a little more, and I loved it. Especially the developing part. What fun!

What was your starting point as an artist and what is your background?

Since I was a child I have always loved to draw and do creative crafts, so it was always clear to me that I wanted to dedicate myself to something related to art. I studied Advertising and Graphic Design and became interested in illustration and especially in lettering, becoming self-taught after a lot of practice and some other courses. After working hard and focusing on my portfolio, I have finally managed to work on projects that I believe in and that make me feel proud.

What does being an illustrator mean to you? Where do you get inspiration for your designs?

As I said, I am finally achieving what I have been pursuing for years. Although the road is hard, it makes me very happy to work every day on projects that represent me as a human being, that defend my ideals and make me feel good. For me, being an illustrator is to dedicate myself to what I have always liked to do. As I say, it's not always easy and not every day is a holiday, but in general I feel very fortunate. For my designs I think mostly of personal experiences that I have lived and that have marked me in some way, or messages that I need to convey because I think I'm not the only one who needs to hear them. It seems to me that social networks are a very good loudspeaker to talk about certain topics and find your tribe.

Your drawings are characterized by strong, bright, vivid colors. A world made of colors and very direct and important messages. What do you want to convey?

I want to convey that I am strong and that you can be strong too. But also that we all deserve our space to be vulnerable.

I also want to convey that, although fatphobia or mental problems are dark and sad topics, people who suffer from them or have suffered from them move on and know how to see the bright and colorful side of things.

Speaking from a more technical perspective, sometimes I also like to use very striking color palettes in a somewhat ironic way, and, above all, I want to brighten up the eyes of the person who sees my work.

What are your next projects coming up in the future?

Right now I'm working on illustrating several books with very cool themes around self-love, self-knowledge and self-acceptance, and I think they're going to look great! So that's the most immediate thing I can tell you, since the beginning of the year is planned to give me some time to create for myself, get inspired and plan some personal projects.

In the moments of searching for inspiration I would really like to use my La Sardina camera, and photograph simple things that move me inside.

Many thanks to Lucía for this amazing customization! Find out more of her artistic work on her Instagram profile and website.

written by melissaperitore on 2022-12-13 #gear #people #diy #spain #feminism #lasardina