Diogo Brito is a Lisbon-based designer whose practice sits at the intersection of art, culture, and communication. Trained in Industrial Design and Fine Arts, and largely self-taught in graphic design, Diogo brings an artistic sensitivity to projects across the cultural sector. His work blends material awareness, emotion, and storytelling, shaped by close collaboration with artists, galleries, and creative communities.

Tell us about where you study/studied and some of your highlights and favourite lecturers and if you are self taught, how did you do it?!

I’m mostly self-taught. I studied Industrial Design and Fine Arts at the University of Fine Arts in Lisbon.

Initially, I wanted to be a furniture designer, but then I changed to Fine Arts thinking I’d become an artist. Even so far as participating in group exhibitions. However, after finishing my degree things happened organically. I began helping friends with designing their websites, posters for exhibitions, flyers, simple identities, and that slowly became my path as a designer. I was always curious about what the graphic design students were doing. I cared a lot about the particulars of how I presented my projects, how the visuals told the story.

Though it was unplanned, design started to feel like the right language for me. I learned everything by doing, by experimentation, by watching other designers, many of them friends, and studios whose work I admired and followed. My background in Fine Arts still influences how I see design. I like to think my work carries a bit of that artistic side with a certain eye for the attention to materials, colours, composition, and emotion.

Most of my projects are related to the cultural field, working with artists, designers, galleries, performers, etc so that creative blending between art and design keeps growing.

Tell us about your tools / what tech, programs, equipment and environment do you do your best work in?

I work as a freelancer and have a small studio space in Lisbon where I spend most of my days.
The computer is really the center of my work, its where I spend the most time. For graphic projects I use programs like Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Figma the most. For motion, I often use After Effects or Cavalry, and for web projects, I mean coding, I work with Visual Studio Code.

I also use Notion to organize projects or prepare presentations. But my favorite tool might be Notes, where I use it every day to write down ideas or fragments that later become something, thanks to my husband, he's a superstar at that!

I think a lot of designers can relate to that.

Beyond software, my tools are often more physical or emotional. I collect books, exhibition flyers, posters, things I collect from events or find in the city, they’re like a personal archive of textures, colors, and memories. I also use Instagram and Cosmos to save visual and sound references, films, or artworks that move me.

I think my best work happens when I’m surrounded by all of this things, a mix of digital tools and small analog details that help me stay curious and inspired.

Tell us some of your favourite, creative professionals and inspiring places in your city!

In Lisbon, there are many designers and studios whose work I truly admire and feel connected to.
I love the work of Desisto, Bárbara Says..., V-A studio, Solid Dogma (sadly no longer active), all of them have a strong cultural focus and a visual language that feels experimental, bold, and expressive. I also collaborate with A Equipa, a studio with great branding projects and a thoughtful design approach.

Some designers I really look up to are Joana Fatela, an amazing motion designer, Sílvia Matias, Lisa Moura, Mário Feliciano and José Mendes, great typography designers, many others. I’m getting inspired also for some visual artists like Horácio Frutuoso and Sara Mealha.

Outside of work, I get a lot of inspiration just by walking through the city.
I love observing old shopfronts and signs, the typography, the colors, the way traditional and modern shops coexist. That mix between what remains and what changes always inspires me.

I also enjoy visiting friends’ studios, going to gardens to work, stopping by bookshops see what’s new, many of them like Well Read, Bertrand, STET, or more publisher/collectives like Stolen Books, Gabinete Paratextual, Greta Livraria, etc..

These small rituals feed my eye and help me on my routine as a creative.

What are your biggest hopes and dreams for 2026, both for the world and your career?

My hopes for the world are for genuine, deep and vulnerable communication - with ourselves, with others and with the natural world. I feel it’s the most indispensable tool humanity has going forward. Its core concern of communication is in fact what draws me to design.

For myself, I’m excited about the work of building; fleshing out new design skills, exploration of constructive collaborations, applying my sensibility to a wider range, scope and style of projects while deepening the development of the tools I already use to these ends. I hope for projects that not only push me but play with the edges of what possible with design and wild, curious ways to use it.

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