MACHAS

New Talent: Miguel Angel Campubrì

Miguel is an exciting young illustrator and animator hailing from Spain. After graduating with a degree in design and one in illustration from Madrid’s Universidad Complutense and completing a working experience in product design and motion graphics in Amsterdam, Miguel realized that illustration was his true calling. “I think no other sector allows me as much freedom as illustration does,” admits Miguel. “It let me explore and do as many different things as I want.” 

At a very young age, Miguel has developed a quite distinctive world populated by startling characters that are essential as though reinterpreted through the delicate lens of innocence and humor. Whether illustrated with few simple black lines or fully dressed in his signature bright and bold color palette, Miguel’s characters channel a strong, witty personality, resulting in visually enticing snapshots of a cheerful and uplifting world, undoubtedly energized by a smart use of animation. “When you start animating your own illustrations it makes a big difference,” says Miguel. “As my artworks are quite simple, I think animation add one more dimension, time, that makes them much more complex regarding storytelling.

The two languages work perfectly together, although illustration is the base”. The fine balance between an essential and distinctive trait and the capability of representing surprising narratives is what makes Miguel’s work so fresh.  After Madrid and Amsterdam, Miguel is currently living in Lisboa, Portugal: ” to be honest, if I look at my work from the outside I may find certain differences depending on the place where I was living. But I don’t see the huge change I was expecting:  my style has remained fairly consistent, even if I have been trying new things, I have learned to animate, and I have left aside all the techniques to go to the simplest, the pencil, the pen and the graphic tablet.”

An essential visual approach paired up with a contagious energy is a constant theme of Miguel’s work, and we don’t think that his website’s name (hahaha.com) is casual: “there wasn’t too much thinking going into the website name: I like laughing, and sense of humor is really important to me, so I just wrote “hahaha.”

See Miguel’s portfolio here.