About · Lisbon
Designer by trade, photographer by habit.
I grew up above a print shop in Matosinhos, falling asleep to the sound of a Heidelberg. Ten years of magazines, museum signage and restaurant menus later, I still think the best design smells faintly of ink.
Since 2022 I’ve run a one-person studio in Lisbon, working with cooperatives, cultural institutions and small hospitality. I keep a camera on me at all times; the photographs in the gallery are where most of my ideas start.
Four working principles
- 1
Walk the site first.
Every brief starts on foot: the harbour, the platform, the dining room. I don’t open a laptop until I’ve watched how people actually use the place.
- 2
Fewer colours, braver ones.
Two inks, chosen well, will out-communicate a twelve-colour palette. Constraint is what makes a thing recognisable from across the street.
- 3
Make it to be handled.
Paper weight, button size, the way a menu folds. If people touch it, it deserves to be prototyped at full size.
- 4
Leave room for the client’s hand.
The best identities are the ones the people who run the place can keep using without me. I design systems, then hand over the pen.
The long version
Experience & education
- 2022 — Now
Independent designer & photographer at Estúdio Calado
Identities, editorial and interface work for cooperatives, cultural institutions and small hospitality.
A one-person studio with a rotating cast of printers, ceramicists and developers.
- 2018 — 2022
Senior designer at Atelier Norte
Led the editorial and wayfinding practice; art-directed photography for three museum reopenings.
Worked on the signage for Casa da Arquitectura and the visual identity of the Bienal de Fotografia do Porto.
- 2015 — 2018
Junior designer, weekend magazine at Público
Laid out 140-odd issues of the Saturday magazine and shot covers when the budget ran dry.
Learned to make a page work at 2am with a headline that's three words too long.
- 2011 — 2015
BA Communication Design at ESAD Matosinhos
Thesis on the vernacular lettering of Porto's fish markets.
In the bag
- Cameras
- Nikon FM2, Ricoh GR III, a borrowed Hasselblad 500C/M
- Film
- Portra 400, CineStill 800T, Ektar 100
- Riso MZ970 at Oficina Tinta, Lisbon
- Software
- Figma, InDesign, Glyphs, a lot of tracing paper