The Real Machado de Assis
Machado de Assis, Brazil's greatest writer, in the portrait everybody knows, with his Black features given back to him.
Play case film — sound on2:12- Client
- Universidade Zumbi dos Palmares
- Agency
- Grey Brasil
- Role
- Motion Design
- Year
- 2019
The brief
The portraits in print, on banknotes and on stamps show a white man. He was Black. Zumbi dos Palmares, the São Paulo university founded for Afro-Brazilian students, wanted the record corrected.
The idea
A reconstruction, not a reimagining: the portrait was rebuilt from the historical record and from photographs of the man, including one only identified as him in 2018.
The result
Stickers so readers could correct the portrait in their own copies, a petition asking publishers to stop printing the whitened version, a new edition with the restored image on the cover, and the portrait delivered to the Academia Brasileira de Letras. Bronze Lion in Brand Experience & Activation at Cannes 2019.
Credits
Creative Leadership — Adriano Matos, Rodrigo Jatene, Bruno Brux
Creative Direction — Marcelo Bruzzesi, Rafael Gonzaga
Creative — Gustavo Zordan, Julia Mota
Motion Graphics — Edu Menezes
Production — Lemonade / Diego Biazzon
Post / Sound — PixelLove / Satelite Audio
