First notes
My name is Gabriel Sărăcescu. Yes, Sărăcescu. In Romanian it sounds a lot like “the poor one”, hardly a name that promises a fortune. And yet, despite it, my father and then I gathered a different kind of wealth: in education, in culture and in the people who grew alongside us.
My father, Daniel Sărăcescu, was a pianist and one of the founders of the Faculty of Arts at Ovidius University in Constanța, the place where fine arts, music and theatre found a home. Today, a hall of the faculty he helped build bears his name.
So it is no accident that it all began with the piano. In 1996, in first grade, I was 7 when I first sat down at the keys, at the “Regina Maria” National College of Arts, and I stayed there for four years.
From keys to colours
After four years of piano, I traded the keys for pencils. I spent the next four years drawing, painting and sculpting, learning to look at light, form and volume with the same attention I had learned to listen with.
Music never really left. It stayed in the rhythm of lines, in the harmony of colours and in the way that, even today, a visual composition has to “sound” right.
Lines, volumes and walls
In high school, drawing found its structure: two years of architecture, then two years of design. I learned that beauty also has to work, and that a space, an object or a page are, above all, made for people.
That was also when I discovered that the city is the biggest canvas of all. At the graffiti contest held by City Park Mall together with the Constanța Art High School, themed “I am happy!”, our piece “The Angels”, painted with Adrian Spătaru and Constantin Malmare on the hoardings of the future mall, won first prize. I never put the spray can down: collaborations with AquaMagic Constanța and Teach for Romania followed, and I am still a street artist today.
The piano taught me that everything is rhythm: a page, a logo, a whole life.
Gabriel Sărăcescu
Design as a craft
After high school I studied Industrial Design at the National University of Decorative Arts and Design in Bucharest. Then came years at design and production companies, working on many projects, from the first sketch to the finished object.
With The Pink Design and Golden Struct I designed and built installations, totems, interiors, street furniture, illuminated signs and lamps. I worked with wood, with metal and with craftsmen, and learned how far a beautiful drawing can be from a thing well made.
Across the world’s seas
Then I chose a road nobody expected: I studied navigation at the Maritime University of Constanța and went to sea. For four years I sailed the world’s seas and oceans as a navigation officer.
But design came aboard with me. Between shifts and night watches I kept drawing, learning and working out of passion, with the horizon as the best lesson in composition.
Back on shore
Back on land, I returned to my first love: graphic design. I started in hospitality, with identities, menus and materials for restaurants and cafés, then specialised in digital marketing and advertising.
ReBrandMe
In 2022 I founded ReBrandMe Design, a studio dedicated to creative solutions, branding and visual production. Since then I have been helping brands grow, get seen and find their voice.
And, like my father, I stayed close to culture: the visual identity and coordination of the Techirghiol Art Festival, with programmes such as Find Your Passion, Love Your Town and Art in Education, as well as projects like Unifestheatre, Echoscapes, the Bucharest Early Music Festival and the Early Music Season.
I have also worked with agencies at home and abroad, among them Happy Advertising, Serigrafic Advertising and Military Autosource New York.
The story goes on and I can’t wait for the next chapter.
