Guillem Barceló: "The tourists hardly buy anything from me, they find it too Majorcan"

ManacorGuillem Barceló has just opened Patxanga, a shop that complements his screen printing workshop opened a few years ago, where he sells his own designs based on iconic Mallorcan phrases transformed into drawings and colors. T-shirts, lunch boxes, and bottles are the beginning of a creative universe now installed in the old Ca na Verda premises.

How has this process or this desire to move to a more visible space been?

— Basically it was because it was my purpose. From the beginning, when I started studying, I wanted to have my own shop where I could sell my own designs.

What year did you start?

— In screen printing after the pandemic, in 2021. I did a higher degree in graphic arts printing and started working at the Muntaner printing company, doing offset on paper. I didn't like it... Then I worked as a sign maker, and neither did I. Until I ended up working as a delivery driver. Just after that, Covid came and, unfortunately, I had to be removed. It was then that I said: it's time to set up my workshop. I have always been in love with screen printing.

You had it clear.

— Even when I was studying, I wanted to do screen printing, no matter what. And my idea was to open a shop to be able to set up a brand. But since it was complicated, I went for the workshop side to see how it went. Until I committed to it, seeing that my designs have been liked and successful.

Because you have been making your own designs for years.

— I've always done designs while fulfilling orders for clients. As the more routine or commissioned work left me time, I started.

And when do you see that it's the moment? When do you find the place? Or would it also have been somewhere else?

— Because with friends we usually come a lot to the Es Cós bar, and one day I saw the sign that they were closing for retirement and I said to myself... this place has to be mine! I was excited because it's a very special place, where I used to go shopping with my grandmother when I was little. It's quite evident that it has a lot of charm.

It has another aspect.

— Now it looks bigger. They had it placed as they had to have it for the work they did. In small boxes, drawers, and shelves. I can now have it in another way, cleaner and more visual.

There are new t-shirts.

— New designs, such as the one of the duckling, which strongly reminds me of the Garanya, where my mother has worked all her life; or this Manacor concept of Xorrigofobia upon arriving in Palma, the one with salty skin... Every so often I make new ones, in batches of three.

Do you have a website?

— Not yet, I'll get to it when I have a bit more time. For now, I'm combining shop in the mornings and workshop in the afternoons.

As you can see this trend of design with Majorcan phrases, with brands like Melicotó or Parisio, for example. You are more visual.

— I am more of expressing the phrase with a drawing that I like. Words or expressions that are lost like "Puja aquí i veuràs Portopí", "Vius i coa dreta"..., but where the phrase is a complement to the drawing, to visual art.

What has been the reception?

— So far it has been great. Many people from Manacor have already come, as well as people from Palma. Foreigners come in, but they don't understand much... I think they find it too Majorcan! I, who tend to sin by pessimism, now see that I have to rest every day... And very happy!