PROJECT RECOLECTION
Illustration: Naomi Sekiba
Typography: Raphael Thalles
Layout: Raphael Thalles
Role: Typography, Layout, Visual Direction
Collaboration: Illustration by Naomi Sekiba
Recolection is a personal project developed in collaboration with Japanese illustrator Naomi Sekiba. The premise was simple: bring together two creative voices, illustration and graphic design, and build something that felt intentional, not assembled.
Designing around someone else's art is one of the more demanding exercises in visual discipline. The illustration had to lead. Every typographic and layout decision existed to support it, not compete with it. The margin for error is narrow: too much design presence and the artwork suffocates. Too little and the system falls apart.
A subtractive approach guided every decision. Typography was treated as architecture: structural, precise, and invisible when working correctly. Spatial rhythm and negative space were used to create breathing room without losing visual tension. The result is a layout system that holds the illustrations without framing them.
Recolection is not a client project. It is a demonstration of how I work when the brief is self-imposed: with the same rigour, and a clearer point of view. It also reflects an ability to collaborate across cultures and creative disciplines without one voice erasing the other.