Lisbon, Portugal

The May/June 2010 (#374 Illustration Annual 51) issue of Communication Arts magazine contains a feature article I’ve written entitled “Visual Communication Design in Portugal: Land of Discovery.” The piece investigates Portugal’s unique attributes, history, culture, and current realities in relation to visual communication—the article is accompanied by a selection of design and illustration by Portuguese designers.

I visited Lisbon in 2009 as a speaker at OFFF 2009 Oeiras (International Festival For The Post-Digital Creation Culture), an event attended by nearly 4000 enthusiastic participants. After the conference, I drew from dozens of attendees who contacted me following my talk in order to crowd-source opinions on Portuguese design and related issues, as well as suggestions for representative works.

I have been contributing in-depth foreign feature articles to Communication Arts magazine since 1994, including pieces on design and design events in Russia, Portugal (the XVI Icograda General Assembly in 1995), Uruguay, Australia, Korea, Japan, Brazil, China, Denmark, Cuba, and New Zealand.

Read the full feature article (with full creative credits for works shown, CA issue #374) or download the entire CA Portugal design feature here (1.1 MB). Note: this feature article from Communication Arts magazine appears with permission by Communication Arts ©2010 Coyne & Blanchard, Inc. All rights reserved.

A special thanks to the numerous Portuguese designers and design educators who enthusiastically contributed their insights, viewpoints, and suggestions regarding works that appear in the article, in particular; Sarah Chaves Brasseur, Carla Carrão, Aurelindo Ceia, António (Tózé) Coelho, António Costa, Ana Farinha, João Cardoso Fernandes, Antero Ferreira, Afonso Figueiredo, Margarida Fonseca, Bruno Franco, António Silveira Gomes, Carla Ponte Júlio, Ana Lopes, Miguel Macedo, Mário Moura, Fernando Oliveira, João Maio Pinto, Rosa Quitério, Luísa Ribas, Catarina da Silva, Paulo Silva, and Patrícia Sobral.