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R Design is an annual traveling event that aims to discuss design practice, the plurality of design education, and contemporary themes, while exploring the relationship between professionals, students, and the host city — Belo Horizonte in 2020.
For this edition, we named the event R Design Contornos (Contours), a concept inspired by Contorno Avenue (Countour Avenue), which outlined Belo Horizonte in urbanist Aarão Reis’ original city plan, and Carlos Drummond de Andrade’s poem “No Meio do Caminho” (“In the Middle of the Road”). Both references invite reflection on the boundaries around us and how we can create solutions to navigate the challenges we encounter in life.
As part of the event’s communication team, I collaborated with other designers to develop various visual assets.
I was responsible for designing and developing a website that gathered records and content created by the communication and content teams. This platform served to officially share key information about the event’s structure and vision.
The site features graphic elements inspired by Belo Horizonte’s aesthetic. The original map of Contorno Avenue appears alongside lines extracted from the map itself, acting as visual guides for reading flow.
Essential information — such as event guidelines and foundational principles — uses graphics tied to the brand’s color palette and navigational map elements. Content is displayed within “city blocks” and “streets” that mimic the contours of an urban floor plan.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we reimagined R Design Contornos as a fully online, free event. This marked the first Brazilian design student gathering in this format and the only one held in 2020. We overhauled our communication strategy, with the portal as a central piece.
Closer to the event date, we launched a registration website doubling as a web app. It housed the full schedule, registration forms, and participation guidelines, with tutorials explaining how to access content. The goal was to create a clear, centralized hub for attendees. Features included a list of every activity with a countdown to the event date, options to save events directly to Google or Apple Calendar and participant data management and registration tracking.
Our social media showcased a collaborative visual experiment reflecting the event’s concept, with contributions from multiple designers. Below are examples of assets I created.
To introduce the event to students nationwide during the National Design Student Gathering, we produced a video set against Belo Horizonte’s urban landscape.
After transitioning to a fully virtual format due to COVID-19, we created a video to showcase new ways of accessing and experiencing a design gathering.
To connect with our audience, we created Descontornada (“Unbounded”), a digital influencer in the form of a capybara mascot, to teach Minas Gerais slang and expressions to a national audience. The video below is part of a series shared on Instagram.
Software used:
