Q&A with Fernando Baptista, SND46 World’s Best Designer

With SND47 on the way, members of the Creative Competition committee set out to ask SND46 portfolio winners to take us behind the scenes of their work in 2024. Fernando Baptista was the recipient of SND46's World Best Designer for his Individual: Infographics portfolio with National Geographic magazine. He won a gold medal for his portfolio.

Baptsita was interviewed by the SND46 World's Best Emerging Designer winner, Emma Kumer. You can read our Q&A with Kumer here.

How have you grown as an artist from your early days with stop-motion to your current clay modeling work?

Basically, when I was a kid and I watched stop-motion movies I thought, "Whoah, I want to work on that." When I was 17 or 18, I started to make stop-motion animation with a friend - it was more seconds than minutes. When I decided to work here, I made models and I proposed maybe we can make stop motion. Sometimes it's just stop motion, or other times puppets, After Effects, different techniques, or traditional two dimensional cartoons. It depends on the story.

Thinking about a specific piece from your portfolio, what was your initial goal versus what it actually turned out as?

The octopus was a graphic that I feel is very interesting, because people are very familiar with the octopus and basically we tried to explain the secret of the octopus, the intelligence, the anatomy. I really enjoyed making the octopus too, I learned a lot about them. For this project, the researcher prepared 200 pages probably of information. I read a couple of books too, just to get a little bit of background and we have several meetings with the experts. In the end, you are some sort of mini expert.

How do you imagine people interacting with your work?

We have a magazine, they have incredible photos, so how can we compete with that? That's the thing that we try. I mention sometimes it's the "woah" effect. When you open a gatefold, it needs to be attractive and beautiful, that is the part that I put a lot of work into. At the same time, you need to organize information very well. People need to read, and at the end they need to feel, "I think I learned something, and this is pretty cool."

What tools, resources or people helped you get where you are now?

At National Geographic, usually for each project I work with a researcher. If it's a big project sometimes I can have two researchers or three researchers. The researcher, they need to find the best experts, contact with the experts, start to have meetings with them, start to get information, so it's a lot of work.

Why are things the way they are?

I have this skill with analog, I have this skill for digital and I combine both. This kind of balance, if I remove one of the parts, I feel my work probably wasn't the same. Some people tell me "why don't you try 3D models? Why don't you try AI?" The problem is I really enjoy the stuff that I do, I really love it. I love all of the process.

What are some tips that you give to students going into an industry that have a specific skill or craft they want to learn?

I have a lot of luck with my career, just to find something that you really have passion for and are good at in some way. It was a lot of luck and work. It's just practice. Go in one direction, go in another, try different things. Find something that you really like and that you can add something from yourself. In my case, I like models so I add this layer of analog. Working on something that you really like is unique.

What are you working on now?

I proposed one story about St. Peters in Rome, it will be the 400th anniversary, and it was approved, so I will try to do that. I have another graphic about cormorants, like it's totally different. You go from St. Peter's Basilica to cormorants - that is the part I really like, it's a challenge, but I like to learn something.