My Client

Marco de Carvalho is a Seattle performing artist, Brazilian guitarist, and teacher. He grew up in the São Cristóvão area of Rio de Janeiro and learned to play guitar hanging out with his friends on the streets and beaches of his hometown. Conservatory training in Rio, led him to tour internationally, eventually settling in Seattle over 15 years ago.

Here, he continues to expand his life's repertoire performing an extensive catalog of original compositions and songs from Rio de Janeiro, recording with fabulous musicians, leading workshops, and teaching lessons on guitar.

The Situation

Marco contacted me to design a new website on Squarespace after his former WordPress site had become unusable and his designer in São Paulo had become more difficult to reach. In our initial meeting, we identified his need for a fully functional website that he could update himself whenever needed, so as not to be communicating internationally for website updates. We also discussed how this could be a great opportunity to personalize his brand, incorporating his Brazilian roots and the influence of his early life experiences growing up in São Cristóvão, Rio de Janeiro. He loved this idea, so we applied ourselves to the task!

For Marco, a performing musician, an effective website, would have:

• An events calendar with information for fans about his musical performance dates and workshops,

• Music streaming to showcase his work and sell albums,

• A contact form featuring a way to order compact discs from Marco and inquire about hiring him for private events,and

• Provide bio information and photography to journalists and performance venues to use in articles and event listings.

Expressing his heritage through his brand identity would make his brand personal, memorable, and stand out in the crowd.

Our Results

Marco’s brand identity is built upon the foundation of his cultural heritage featuring national colors of Brazil - green and blue. Site typography is sleek and modern, and site images capture Marco in his element enjoying what he does best - performing for an audience at a local venue. His joy, humor, and passion for his craft shine through in the photos.

He is happy to report that he has received many compliments from fans, show venues, and journalists about how beautiful they find the site experience, and how quickly and easily they find information they need - bio and photos for venue listings and articles. Marco is thrilled that he no longer spends hours emailing back and forth with venues to provide a cut-and-pasted bio and outdated photographs for show announcements. He simply sends his website link and they find what they need. He feels proud that his website now conveys his early life experiences and influences in Brazil. Music streaming to allow listening form his site and seamless connection to his bandcamp profile make selling his music straight forward on a platform that sends nearly 100% of sales to him, unlike big music streaming services that pay very little back to artists.