Guillem Barceló: "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 being 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've always been in love with screen printing.

You had it clear.

— Even when I was studying, I wanted to do screen printing, yes or yes. 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 part to see how it went. Until I bet on it, seeing that my designs have been liked and have been successful.

Because you have been making your own designs for years.

— I have always made designs while fulfilling orders for clients. As the more routine or commissioned work left me, I started.

And when do you see that it's the right time? 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 due to retirement and I told myself... this place has to be mine! I was very 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.

— It now 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 a different way, cleaner and more visual.

There are new t-shirts.

— New designs, such as the duckling, which strongly reminds me of the Garanya, where my mother worked all her life; or this Manacor concept of Xorrigofòbia 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 do 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 Mallorcan phrases, with brands like Melicotó or Parisio, for example. You are more visual.

— I am more inclined to express the phrase with a drawing that I like. Words or expressions that are lost like "Come up here and you will see Portopí", "Live and tail straight"..., but where the phrase is a complement to the drawing, to visual art.

What was the reception?

— So far it has been excellent. 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 usually sin with pessimism, now see that every day I have to rest... And very happy!