2023 – Present
Studio Varela, Lisbon
Founder & Creative Director
A two-person studio in Marvila. We run campaign and identity work end to end, from the first pencil sketch to standing at the press checking the red.
About me
I'm Ines Varela. I make work you can see from across the street: posters, campaigns and identities for festivals, small presses and food brands, mostly printed, mostly loud, always drawn by hand before it goes near a screen.
Work experience & highlights
2019 – 2023
Atelier Norte
Senior Art Director
Led the festival and culture accounts: 40-odd poster campaigns, three rebrands, and the habit of printing every proof at full size on the studio wall.
2016 – 2019
Revista Cimento
Designer, then Art Director
Started on page layouts for a quarterly architecture magazine and left running its covers, its type and a fight about bleed margins that I won.
Work
Rua Torta
Eighteen posters for a street-music festival, pasted across Mouraria a week before each weekend.
Ferro & Folha
Wordmark, colophon and cover grid for a small press that prints twelve books a year.
Mercado Noturno
Stall numbers, hanging signs and a timetable poster for a night market in a disused tram depot.
Grão Escuro
Black bags, blind-debossed cards and one red for a coffee roaster that did not want a logo on the front.
Services
// 01
Campaign
direction
One idea carried across posters, film, social and the side of a bus.
// 02
Identity
design
Wordmarks, colour and type rules a team can actually use without me.
// 03
Posters
& print
Screen print, riso and offset, proofed at full size before it ships.
// 04
Editorial
art direction
Covers, grids and image direction for magazines and books.
Testimonials
Ines got the whole poster run approved in one meeting. People were photographing the walls before the line-up was even announced.
Rita GonçalvesProgramme Director, Festival Rua Torta
We asked for a logo and she talked us out of it. The bags sell better without one, and she was right about the red.
Tomás LacerdaCo-founder, Grão Escuro
Tools
01
Screen printExpert
02
RisographExpert
03
35 mm filmAdvanced
04
LetterpressLearning