I’m a Brazilian product designer based in Recife, working with international clients & teammates since 2018.
I currently work as full-stack designer at Apple Developer Academy and design system specialist with Sonder Collective.
background
I design digital products since 2015, and for a long time before that I've been solving problems and bringing ideas to life in other areas of design, from fashion to typography. I'm adaptable, fearless and driven by the impact my work has on those around me.
In my career as a design consultant, I have built a design team from the ground up, created complex web products and tailored design systems for a wide range of industries from Silicon Valley, New York and Europe.
design approach
I consider every single thing that I build (whether it's an interface, a lecture, or a UI component) as an experience, striving to make it efficient, delightful and simple. I think of myself as a generalist designer, and I enjoy working through a problem from discovery to delivery, always drawing on the specialized knowledge of my teammates and product stakeholders.
I believe that every step of the design process should be visible to the entire team (even when it's messy), and I thrive in environments where feedback loops are quick and constant. The craft of design is very important to me, and I like my artifacts to be elegant and polished.
beyond work
I have many interests and passions outside of product design. Some of my hobbies include playing the piano, creating Carnaval costumes (Recife has the best Carnaval in the world) and building wood furniture.
Follow me on instagram to see my elderly cats and some travel journals once in a while. I also have a dormant personal blog that someday might come back to life, and is a random but interesting glimpse into my mind (in 🇧🇷).
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⬩skills⬩
interaction design
visual design
technical writing
systemic thinking
storytelling & presentation
design research
design mentoring
design management
⬩values⬩
openness
adaptability
attention to detail
experience
This area shows my recent and relevant experience with design systems, digital product design and education. Expand each section to know more about the work I did.
Sonder is a design collective that uses design, research, and strategy to effect social change. We put the same level of excellence into developing solutions for war refugees and people with limited access to healthcare as we would for a Big Tech company.
I joined Sonder as a freelance collaborator in 2021 with the goal of creating a functional, scalable and comprehensible design system for Loop, an accountability network for humanitarian organizations. My work helped speed up the development of new features that made the tool more accessible to those in need of humanitarian assistance. More details about this project here.
My current mission at Sonder is to create a world-class product documentation for OpenMRS, an open-source medical record system used in 40 countries. The goal is to have product docs that enable the open-source development community to understand how OpenMRS is built, how to approach customization and which design principles & patterns to employ when developing new features. This should result in greater consistency across OpenMRS distributions and better communication between designers and developers.
The Apple Developer Academy (ADA) is an Apple-sponsored program that teaches coding, design, and innovation skills to undergraduate students around the world.
I joined ADA UFPE in 2020, in the height of the pandemic, with the task of converting all in-person design learning activities to remote. My previous experience working remotely was beneficial not only to the students, but also to my colleagues, who were in need of better organization and documentation tools in this new scenario.
My main responsibilities as a design instructor were to plan and facilitate learning activities, bringing design knowledge to students in an engaging and meaningful way. But that's just part of my job. During my almost 3-year tenure, in collaboration with ADA's outstanding pedagogical team, I have:
- Redesigned the 22-23 cohort selection process, adapting all phases to be online-only;
- Updated ADA UFPE's website with a fresh and approachable new aesthetic;
- Ran a successful marketing campaign for our 22-23 selection process on Instagram and LinkedIn;
- Introduced Notion as our knowledge documentation hub and planning tool for mentors and students;
- Consolidated Figma as the main design tool for students by facilitating a series of workshops focused on its main features. The students’ adoption of the tool improved collaboration and made our feedback cycles much more efficient.
Working in the education field (especially during a pandemic) was equal parts challenging and rewarding. This job enabled me to hone my listening and observation skills while also keeping my technical knowledge fresh.
As the first designer to join a company made entirely of software engineers, my major challenges at Vinta were to propose a way to work together with developers in an agile setting, prove the value of design to our clients, and lay the foundation for a solid design culture.
In addition to my role as product designer for our clients, I also had design management responsibilities. During my three years there, I:
- Positioned Vinta as a design-driven company, attractive to new design talent;
- Created and managed a thorough but lightweight and scalable hiring process for designers;
- Defined a career path for designers, specifying skills and responsibilities expected from junior, mid-level and senior professionals.
I joined Vinta at a pivotal moment in its history. By the end of my time there, the company had tripled in size. I left behind a solid design team, and Vinta's clients all had designers on their squads. I worked with brilliant people and was supported by a culture of constant learning, honest feedback and trust from my colleagues and leadership.
My experience as an entrepreneur began at a Startup Weekend hackathon. A team of women banded together to tackle the widespread problem of domestic violence in Brazil, rooted in a culture of misogyny, shame and silence. Our idea was to create a safe space for women victims of domestic abuse, where they could get help from other women, in the form of a mobile app.
The hackathon concept grew into a social impact startup, incubated for 2 years at Recife's tech hub, Porto Digital. My efforts as designer and entrepreneur were distributed between different responsibilities:
- Conduct research with a variety of personas, including women in vulnerable situations, government aid agencies, lawyers, and therapists;
- Design the app's experience with a focus on user safety while keeping development costs as low as feasible;
- Run a crowdfunding campaign to build the Android version of our app. This involved doing a lot of PR with local media outlets to mobilize supporters;
- Manage an online support community on Facebook, which was the MVP of our solution. It worked as a way to provide a safe space for women in need, even before the actual app existed;
- Define a visual language for Mete a Colher's brand, which was used in multiple materials (digital and physical).
This experience taught me how to address real-world problems and rally others behind a cause. In my two-year period at Mete a Colher, I worked with a wonderful team of women, learnt how to do a lot with very little resources, and developed skills that helped me become a better designer.