4 years of collaboration with VIC NIC: supporting a “house-project” with many layers and an intense cultural agenda.

Words: Cristiana Braz, Photos: Miguel Barbot

A few years ago, we met Hugo Branco and entered the slightly difficult to summarise universe that is VIC Aveiro Arts House and VIC NIC. Like many projects that arrive at our studio, it started with a recommendation, a few conversations, and eventually one challenge that quickly turned into several others.

Explaining VIC for the first time can be a bit of an exercise. You start with music and publishing, and then remember there is also a guesthouse, artist residencies, cultural programming, cinema sessions, archives, a record label, a store, and a family history deeply connected to artistic practice. We have worked with them over the years in different capacities and roles, and we continue to do so today.

Hugo Branco and some snippets from the guesthouse, shop and secret cinema.

Back in 2023, our first project together focused on communication, strategy and consultancy. The idea was to understand how these many worlds could coexist and communicate more clearly while respecting the identity of each project. VIC NIC, Navalha, the guesthouse, the cultural programme, and the wider Branco family legacy each had its own stories and audiences, so structuring it all became our first project.

Like with many strategy projects, a good part of the process involved taking a step back and understanding the wider picture before jumping into solutions. We spent time analysing VIC Aveiro Arts House itself and its many moving parts, from products and services to audiences, positioning, and communication opportunities. We mapped strengths and weaknesses, looked at similar and inspiring projects and tried to understand where VIC sat within a wider cultural landscape that can sometimes be difficult to define.

Once that groundwork was in place, we started building a longer term communication plan. We worked around positioning, value propositions, tone of voice, content strategy and ways different audiences could engage with the project. We also developed communication guidelines for different channels and started thinking about practical things like social media planning, community management and implementation roadmaps. Exciting things like spreadsheets also entered the conversation around this point!

Around that same time, we also developed the identity for BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY a sort of project/bootcamp hybrid for independent musicians and record labels that brought together workshops, talks and practical knowledge around the music industry. We have already shared a detailed breakdown of that process in a previous post, and to this day it still remains one of those projects we remember fondly.

Soon after came the SURVIVAL KIT, derived as BREAK’s digital guide with content prepared by the VIC NIC crew, extending the project beyond the event itself and creating something participants could return to and new audiences could also enjoy. The BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY SURVIVAL KIT was designed by yours truly in e-book format and is still available for free download. That marked the end of our collaboration with VIC for a while.

The visual identity of BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY applied across print and digital.

Looking through archives and revisiting the work of Hugo’s grandfather, Vasco Branco.

The BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY SURVIVAL KIT.

More recently, though, we found ourselves back in Aveiro.
In August last year, Hugo invited us back to the Arts House to revisit the strategy and communication work and move from planning to implementation, taking what we had built previously and reevaluating it, reworking it and putting it to work across VIC’s social media and channels. Except now there were more projects, more ideas and naturally more things happening at once.

Getting up to speed with VIC NIC’s latest projects, talking about strategy and future opportunities with Hugo.

Storage/archive room with many VIC NIC relics.

Since then, our collaboration has been more focused on the daily life of VIC NIC. We coordinate the ongoing communication across platforms and projects and spend a good part of our time making sure the many different moving pieces align with one another.

Part of our work lives in social media planning and content creation across Instagram, Facebook and occasionally YouTube, from post and reel design to copywriting and campaign layouts. Another part happens around coordinating releases and communication flows, like album launches, singles, newsletters, event announcements and different projects with different timelines attached to them.

Last year, we joined the communication efforts for the Portuguese edition of Adventurous Music Plateaux (AMP), a LIVEMX project by the Plateux Foundation, which became our first major project after returning to VIC NIC at the end of summer (for which we also have another blog post available, in case you’d like to read about that particular visit). From there came the AMP In Loco’s first edition back in December 2025, and more recently at the beginning of May, the second and final instalment. Along the way we have designed and directed the communication for the monthly live concerts, screenings, talks and other events happening inside the house.

Visuals for social media and In Loco edition 1 (on top) and 2 (bellow).

We have also worked closely with the VIC NIC team on record label-related releases, from musicians such as Skier and Yeti, helping communicate singles and albums, alongside projects like MAGMA: MATERIA EN VIBRACIÓN and A FOURTH STATE OF WATER, which we’re happy to say were huge successes.

Instagram and facebook posts for the release of MAGMA. Photos and packaging design by the VIC NIC team.

One thing we enjoy about collaborations like this is that our role naturally changes depending on what is needed. Some days we are thinking strategically and planning ahead, while other days involve designing and coordinating assets, writing copy and making sure everything is connected. A lot of the time it’s a combination of both. Nowadays, we support all social communications across different moments, helping shape things as they evolve, which means seeing projects grow over time and following ideas from their earliest stages all the way into the world.

Fortunately for us, there always seems to be something new happening at the house.