“It’s not possible that we are the only ones working with industrial design in Brazil.”
The title of this story was repeated countless times in conversations I had with my mentor and great friend, Guilherme De Baère, before creating DI BR.
During the time I worked at Indio da Costa AUDT, Gui and I continually discussed our references in Brazilian design and the importance of establishing a community of designers in Brazil. As the two of us had studied in the United States, we had experienced a solid and dynamic connection between academia and industry. We both worked on school projects sponsored by companies and participated in other initiatives that promote design on a national scale… And the theme of our lunch would always return to the possibility of connecting industrial designers in a similar way in Brazil.
I told Gui how frustrating it was to be in college and have so few references of design teams in the national context. In college, my generation was introduced to successful names, but never to studios or design departments. And many times, I asked myself: and where do all the students who graduated in industrial design in Brazil work? It is not possible that working at Indio da Costa is the only option.
When I moved to the United States in 2018, I had the opportunity to connect with more people outside the “university bubble”, and that opened doors that I would never imagine. Both the academic and professional communities count on several associations and organizations to foster the university-industry dynamic across the country.
An important example is IDSA (Industrial Designers Society of America) — one of the leading design organizations in the United States. Founded in 1965, this association promotes discussion panels, events, awards, scholarships, among other initiatives, both at the educational and professional level. IDSA allowed me to meet designers across the US. Through their endeavors, I learned about different professional journeys, sought portfolio feedback, found new mentors, among other opportunities.
Despite IDSA’s role in fostering design in the United States, the organization that welcomed me into the American design community was Advanced Design. AD started in 2016 as an initiative of students from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and today promotes design through numerous initiatives — conferences, events, lectures, courses, podcast, publications, and social media. Currently, the organization collaborates with more than 50 design studios, educators, schools, and professionals in the United States and abroad.
Advanced Design brought me not only colleagues, but also great friends. In 2019, I had the opportunity to go to Square One (SQ1) Conference, and this event was a big game-changer in my understanding of what a design community is. In this particular year, the conference brought speakers with a background similar to mine — with Latin American heritage. Learning from these professionals’ stories made me realize how much representation matters — it makes the dream possible.
SQ1 opened doors for me as a professional and showed me how a community is essential for students to set their career goals during college. If references are not accessible, how can we expect students to be employed?
The radical exposure to this community, which has so many subgroups such as IDSA, Advanced Design, Unif-ID, Women in Industrial Design, Minor Details, among others, opened the horizon never to be disconnected again. The opportunities were so many that the non-existence of a similar model in Brazil was increasingly annoying.
There is a lot of truth in saying that innovation is born out of frustration. Finding this new universe was my motivation to think of ways to enable this Brazilian community, where we could have discussions on different themes about industrial design practice in Brazil and around the world.
Gui and I continued our discussions for a few more months, invited more friends and designers to the initiative, and decided to take the first step in 2020. We spent the first days of the year thinking about creating the group, which platform to use, how to invite other colleagues, etc. Finally, we decided to have WhatsApp as our primary communication channel — since it is a familiar platform for Brazilians — and Discord would be a directory for more organized and structured conversations.
The group started with the first members (Gui, Marcus, Jon, and myself) inviting other designers, who invited other designers… And so on. In the early days, we had already reached most professionals in Rio, with some exceptions for colleagues who live abroad. A month after the creation of the group, I made an invitation post on my LinkedIn with the following text:
The post evolved in a way that none of us expected. Professionals from all over Brazil got in touch, asking to participate. As a result, the group, which started with four designers from Rio de Janeiro, now includes professionals from all regions of Brazil and other locations in the world — Norway, Singapore, England, Portugal, United States, Canada… And much more.
Today, DI BR has 256 members on WhatsApp and 172 on Discord, sharing their experiences worldwide, under different levels of experience. The community grew on organic dynamic and allowed collaboration between members, exchanging information, networking, job posting, etc.
The group started because of the need to connect with other professionals in the area, and it became a horizontal platform capable of fostering initiatives with direct impact… And today, I am honored and grateful for collaborating to build this community.
The initiatives keep growing, and our next step will be the generation of 100% Brazilian content through our publication on Medium. The idea is that everyone can contribute with texts and articles to the platform.
The DI BR administration team will curate the materials received and support authors in formatting their articles to the Medium standard.
The DI BR team is immensely grateful for the participation of its members, and we can’t wait to share your content. Thank you, and let’s get to work :)
