I design products that help scientists and researchers at Springer Nature, and I give guidance to students to build better user interfaces at Career Foundry. Before that, I was at Axel Springer here in Berlin for a couple of years, I tried and failed with a startup in Chile and worked in different advertising agencies in São Paulo.
Belo Horizonte is where I was born, but I grew up between Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and my hometown. I became an art director and designer in São Paulo and decided to call Berlin my home in 2012.
I started my design career as a graphic designer, did my best in digital advertising and found myself in product design. I’ve spent the last 15 years crafting different design solutions for a variety of people, brands and companies around the globe. National Geographic, Puma, Master Card, Olympus, Telekom, Nextel, Fox Films and GM are some of them.
I like to live by the words Massimo Vignelli who said that “If you can design one thing, then you can design everything.” I say specialization is for insects. This is one of the many reasons why I like to keep learning new things. You just have to keep learning and improving your work and yourself. This is what I believe.
Design is what I like to do, but my background is advertising. I got my start in the small advertising and design world that is Belo Horizonte. When I was working there, I did a lot of print advertising and graphic design. Then I moved into something more significant in São Paulo. This was early 2006, and online advertising was booming in Brazil. I took care of flash banners and websites, tried my luck at the social media world that was starting out as well and designed a lot of flyers and posters during my free time.
During the 6 years that I lived and worked in São Paulo, I tried a lot of different things. I designed sites and software structures focused on B2B, I learned a lot about content creation, media design and blogging, and I experimented a lot with online advertising.
When I moved to Berlin, my past experiences took me back into the advertising world where I worked with clients like Telekom, Olympus, National Geographic and Eisbären Berlin. But I wanted to try something else, and this is how I found myself working at Axel Springer as a Product Designer. There I helped develop a voice and a visual identity for Celepedia, the most prominent content platform for teenagers in Germany at the time.
My work there consisted of creating a visual identity for Celepedia, including logo, printed material and website but also making style guides focused on how the content we create looks like in social media and video. All this while managing a small team of designers. These experiences shaped the professional that I try to be today.
I have been working at Springer Nature since early 2017, and I have been facing different challenges since the beginning. The science and research market was something I didn't know much about so just familiarizing with it took me a while. During the years, I have worked with projects focused on Librarians, others were related to scientific careers. More recently, I have been working on branding convergence and design systems.
My grandmother was a University Math Teacher, and I believe she influenced me in finding ways to teach others. Since 2018 I have been helping students learn about UI at Career Foundry. In many ways, this has been a life-changing experience since it taught me how to guide a student work without influencing it much. I also gave me a different design perspective since I work with many other students with entirely different backgrounds.
Outside of my work, I really enjoy photography, and due to my work with Fotostrasse, I have been exploring it quite often. In the last couple of years, I have been experimenting in music by teaching myself how to play the piano and learning about synthesizers, tapes and composition techniques from the pioneers of electronic music. This "band" even has a name: muqdisho.
I like to keep myself busy and, since I moved to Berlin, I come up with a creative exercise where I design a poster for every concert I go to. This is how I designed poster for bands like Neurosis, Ministry, Mastodon, Zoviet France, Tool, Rammstein…
Other than working as a designer, I also like to write about the topic and keep track of what is happening on the internet. Due to that, I have been blogging since 2005 on Pristina.org.
Also, important. Once I walked from my home in Berlin to Poland. I have been playing the drums for twenty years. I don’t plan to shave my beard anytime soon, and I live with five Brazilian cats in Germany.
If you want to know more, you can click here.
Exhibitions, design events and published artwork:
2018 - Resonant Loops at the Jewish Museum in Berlin
2017 - Interview for TV Record, Brazil
2015 - Deliverance Poster for Posterlab 70s, Brazil
2014 - Design Slam Berlin, Germany
2014 - Pulso Magazine at Media Hack Day, Germany
2013 - Book Creation for Refugo, Brazil
2013 - Sticker Art Photography at Panke, Germany
2013 - Illustrations for Strange Zine, Brazil
2012 - Social Media Week Berlin, Germany
2010 - Parede - International Festival of Poster Art, Brazil
2009 - Digital Temple Magazine, France
2017 - Interview for TV Record, Brazil
2015 - Deliverance Poster for Posterlab 70s, Brazil
2014 - Design Slam Berlin, Germany
2014 - Pulso Magazine at Media Hack Day, Germany
2013 - Book Creation for Refugo, Brazil
2013 - Sticker Art Photography at Panke, Germany
2013 - Illustrations for Strange Zine, Brazil
2012 - Social Media Week Berlin, Germany
2010 - Parede - International Festival of Poster Art, Brazil
2009 - Digital Temple Magazine, France
Design Talks, Workshops and more:
2020 - Boom Conferencia, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
2020 - Semana Acadêmica 2020, UNIFATEA, Brazil
2016 - Startup Talk, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
2014 - Pecha Kucha Berlin, Germany
2013 - Design Week in Lorena, Brazil
2013 - Startup Chile in Santiago, Chile
2012 - Destination Berlin, Germany
2010 - UNIFOA Volta Redonda, Brazil
2010 - Pecha Kucha São Paulo, Brazil
2009 - Interview for Urbano TV Show, Brazil
2008 - iED São Paulo, Brazil
2020 - Semana Acadêmica 2020, UNIFATEA, Brazil
2016 - Startup Talk, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
2014 - Pecha Kucha Berlin, Germany
2013 - Design Week in Lorena, Brazil
2013 - Startup Chile in Santiago, Chile
2012 - Destination Berlin, Germany
2010 - UNIFOA Volta Redonda, Brazil
2010 - Pecha Kucha São Paulo, Brazil
2009 - Interview for Urbano TV Show, Brazil
2008 - iED São Paulo, Brazil