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It’s easier to come up with new idea when interacting with people with different kinds of brains. This is the philosophy behind La Casa de Carlota (The House of Carlota), a professional design studio that creates advertising, corporate identity, packaging, branding and graphic design work in a very original way.
What makes them different is the fact that the team, made up of graphic designers, illustrators, art directors, marketing experts, consultants, creatives and students, work together in an inclusive and normalised way with people who have Down syndrome, autism, or some other form of intellectual disability. This unusual and outstanding combination of talents has allowed them to offer their clients innovative, fresh and unique design solutions for their products, while also having a social impact.
Different ways of thinking
It all started in 2013 in Barcelona, when a group of creatives with extensive experience in managing teams in large agencies decided to turn their careers around with something new. What would happen if they included people with different ways of thinking into these teams, they wondered. So they took it to the extreme of working with people who, in fact, had been born different. Carlota is the name of the daughter of one of the studio’s founders. The idea worked, and the studio now also has offices in Seville, Medellín and Lima.
What’s more, in 2022, La Casa de Carlota merged with Roman, a communications consultancy specialising in corporate reputation. Both are B Corp certified – short for “Benefit Corporation”, this certification is given to companies that are leaders in their commitment to economic, social and environmental well-being. This is why they only work with clients who, in addition to seeking impactful creative work, also have social and transformative aims, which require new ways of communicating with consumers.
Highlights
Highlights of the studios work include their food packaging designs, including a colourful coffee can for El Perpetuo Socorro (a creative district in Medellín), a special edition of Alpina yoghurts, the first neurodiverse beer for the Rincón del Mar craft brewery, cans for sweets by Nuts and tetra-paks for vegetable drinks for the organic supermarket chain Veritas – these received a bronze medal at the Pentawards, a competition which recognises the best in packaging design around the world.
Editorial projects are another of La Casa de Carlota’s strengths. The studio has designed several covers for “The Barcelonian”, a collective illustration project that pays tribute to the legendary magazine “The New Yorker” with mock magazine covers. They have also illustrated articles for “Convit/e”, a socio-cultural and gastronomic project to encourage reflections on migration, diversity and human rights.
Much of La Casa de Carlota’s work is related to the cultural world. The team has created graphic designs for theatres and auditoriums, as well as posters for premieres and even a poetry exhibition.
The Barcelona-based studio collaborates with social organisations, such as Aura, which supports the integration of people with intellectual disabilities into the workforce. They created for them a visual identity to make a European conference.
A pair of hand-personalised Nike sneakers and their packaging, and a Christmas campaign for Donuts, are just two examples of the projects they have created for major brands, including Coca Cola, Nestlé and Bayer.
A global leader
The goal of La Casa de Carlota’s founders has always been, from day one, to be a professional design studio in which every person on the team was hired for what they could contribute, not for their physical or intellectual condition. This work model has elevated them to a leading company in the field of innovation and social impact worldwide. In 2018, for example, they were invited to explain their philosophy at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The studio has also received awards such as the City of Barcelona Award for the best project with social impact, the European Institute of Design, and, more recently, the inaugural award from Down Syndrome International, a global network made up of people with Down syndrome and their families, for the best project in the Inclusive Employment category.
In short, the “creative activists” of La Casa de Carlota, as they call themselves, have managed to smash the social paradigm that creative jobs are only for the few, with a project as beautiful as it is revolutionary.