Graphic Designer

My passion for graphic design began in my late teens when I co-founded MCI Serviços Gráficos, a small business focused on printed materials. This hands-on experience refined my skills and deepened my understanding of the industry.

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Timeline

Welcome to a retrospective of my graphic design journey, spanning three decades of creative exploration and professional growth. This curated timeline showcases a selection of projects, one from each year, highlighting my passion for innovation and dedication to excellence.

From my early days at MCI Serviços Gráficos in 1994 to my current roles as Art Director at Urbe Planejamento and Up Leads, each piece represents a milestone in my career, demonstrating my diverse contributions to the field of design.

1994
The Dawn of
the Digital Age
OPEN PROJECT ▲
1995
Consolidation and
Offset Technique
OPEN PROJECT ▲
1996
Design as
Contextual Strategy
OPEN PROJECT ▲
1999
Global Design on the
Waves of Hawaii
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2000
Design for the
American Specialist Press
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2002
Design and Marketing
in Service of the City
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2004
The Golden Age of
Macromedia Flash
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2005
Motion Design and the
Bachelor's Degree
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2007
Design, Sound, and the
Avant-Garde in Barcelona
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2008
Audiovisual at the
World Capital of Clubbing
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2009
Real-Time Design for a
Nation-Scale Project
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2010
Editorial Design and
Luxury Packaging
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2012
Pioneering the Dark
Interface in Brazil
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2014
Design as Legacy
and Memory
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2018
360° Photography and
Virtual Tours
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2020
Premium Brand Building and Marketing Management
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2022
Precision Design and
Marine Woodworking
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2023
E-Commerce and
Digital Curation
OPEN PROJECT ▲
2024
Design for Governance
and Citizenship
OPEN PROJECT ▲

Get in Touch

Interested in connecting and sharing ideas? Whether you have a question about graphic design or simply want to say hello, feel free to reach out!

© 2024 MARCELO ABREU

My passion for graphic design began in my late teens when I co-founded MCI Serviços Gráficos, a small business focused on printed materials. This hands-on experience refined my skills and deepened my understanding of the industry.

Eager to expand my knowledge, I transitioned from from self-teaching to formal education, studying Graphic Arts at Maui Community College in Hawaii. Later, while pursuing a degree in Social Communication with a focus on Marketing in Brazil, I worked as an Art Director and Urban Marketing Consultant at Urbe Planejamento Urbano, where I played a key role in important projects such as Master Plans for multiple cities, public tenders for metro and monorail systems, and creating the São Francisco River Transposition Monitoring Platform for the Federal Government.

Seeking broader perspectives, I earned a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design in Australia and later studied Audiovisual Production in Europe. Currently, I am pursuing a master’s degree in emerging technologies, aiming to drive innovation in design and marketing.

Outside of work, I channel my creativity into hands-on projects. As an avid surfer, I give back to the sport by crafting sustainable wooden surfboards, which I showcase on my Instagram @rakausurfboards. My passion for woodworking extends beyond surfboard shaping, and I thrive on tackling diverse carpentry and CNC projects, always eager to take on new challenges.

I am a lifelong learner with a commitment to excellence, always eager to explore new technologies and techniques. This dedication enables me to offer my clients cutting-edge solutions that stand out in today’s competitive market.

The Dawn of the Digital Age

Coca-Cola Skate Circuit (1994)

This poster for the 1994 Bahian Skate Circuit marks the starting point of my design journey. Created at a time when Brazil had no commercial internet access, making the entire process an exercise in pure experimentation and patience.

Built with CorelDRAW 5 and Photoshop 3, this piece came to life in an era when most advertising materials were still produced by hand. Visual references were hard to come by, arriving almost exclusively through the rare imported magazines that made their way into our hands.

The use of vectors for the three-dimensional logo, along with the image treatment — rudimentary by today’s standards, but bold for its time — reflects the broader shift from analog to digital. With no online tutorials or stock image libraries, every texture and every effect was discovered through trial and error, pushing tools that would soon go on to define the industry standard for years to come.

Consolidation and Offset Technique

Bahian Skate Circuit (1995)

Following the success of the 1994 poster, I was invited to take on the visual identity for every stage of the 1995 championship. The challenge was to create a cohesive look across the series while keeping the raw energy of the sport alive in each piece.

Still working with CorelDRAW and Photoshop, I pushed toward a high-contrast image treatment aimed at a “drawing over photograph” effect, a way of giving the skater photos an artistic, urban quality that spoke directly to the street aesthetic of the decade.

Unlike today’s digital workflows, the process involved a complex preparation pipeline for the print shop. Color separation for film output was a critical step.

Mastering that color engineering, at a time when instant visual feedback simply didn’t exist, was essential to delivering the quality the circuit demanded.

Design as Contextual Strategy

Telebrás Stock Trading (1996)

In 1996, stock trading was a deeply physical experience — Sunday newspaper classifieds were the primary reference point for most of the public. This flyer was designed for street distribution, but with a strategic edge: aesthetics.

The piece was deliberately designed to mimic the layout of a newspaper classified ad. By drawing on the visual language of ad columns and high-contrast type blocks, the design created an immediate psychological association. Readers recognized it as a “buy and sell” service before they had even read a word.

Low Budget, High Impact: Printed on newsprint, this work makes the case that good design doesn’t require premium materials. The challenge was to turn the technical constraints of black-and-white newsprint printing into an asset, ensuring the flyer carried the authority and familiarity needed to earn the trust of anyone who picked it up off the street.

Global Design on the Waves of Hawaii

Wipika Kitesurf: Mauricio Abreu Pro-Models (1999)

In 1999, during my time living in Hawaii, I had the opportunity to contribute to a project with worldwide reach. My brother, Mauricio Abreu, was one of the pioneers and leading figures in global kitesurfing. As a Wipika athlete, he had his own pro-model boards and I was brought in to develop the visual identity for the boards that would be sold around the world.

The process was a genuine creative partnership: Mauricio would bring the initial sketches and concepts, and I would take them through to finished artwork ready for industrial production. Working in Illustrator and Photoshop, I handled the detailed vectorization of his drawings, digital colorization, and background creation. The challenge was translating organic, hand-drawn art into the technical, hydrodynamic format of a surfboard, ensuring the visual impact held up under sunlight and water glare.

These boards, including the Inferno and the Apocalypse, were more than sporting equipment. They were canvases carrying a raw, urban aesthetic to beaches. It was an exercise in both technical precision and artistic sensitivity, bridging the culture of extreme sports with the digital design technology of the era.

Design for the American Specialist Press

Sky Hi USA (2000) 

Still living in Hawaii in 2000, I was brought on to create the launch campaign for Sky Hi USA, a personal venture by my brother, Mauricio Abreu. The ad ran in specialist kitesurfing magazines across the United States, marking another milestone in our creative partnership at a moment when the sport was exploding in popularity.

As the piece itself declared, “An extreme sport for the new millennium”, the visual concept was built around that sense of era-shift. I leaned into design elements that felt cutting-edge at the time: neon glow around the kite, a composition built around a photographic film roll, and tribal textures layered into the background, creating a tension between the ancient and the technological.

Design and Marketing in Service of the City

URBE Urban Planning (2002)

Back in Brazil in 2002, while in my second year of a Marketing degree, I took on the role of Art Director at URBE Urban Planning. This project represented a shift in scale: eight years of graphic design experience now applied to shaping and communicating documents that would define the future of nine municipalities across Bahia.

I was responsible for the visual identity and complete editorial production of nine Municipal Master Plans. The work demanded meticulous organization, integrating large volumes of data, developing technical maps, infographics, and original photographic records. The goal was to transform dense technical information into reports that were readable, visually compelling, and accessible to both public administrators and civil society.

Beyond the visual work, I also authored the Urban Marketing sections of each plan. I developed city branding strategies, creating identities and marks aimed at boosting tourism and driving local development, as seen in the project for Rio de Contas. It was the moment design and marketing converged to think of the city as a social, historical, and economic product.

The Golden Age of Macromedia Flash

Casa Amorim: Projeto Piloto (2002)

In 2002, digital design was at peak Flash. It was the era when agencies and artists were pushing interactivity to its limits  and I was brought in to develop the microsite for the Casa Amorim Projeto Piloto campaign, one of the most established names in construction materials in Bahia.

Unlike the static websites of the time, this microsite was built to be a fluid experience. Flash made it possible to create cinematic transitions, animated menus, and intuitive navigation that walked users through the project’s highlights. 

Building in Flash required a careful balance of design, animation, and programming through ActionScript. The challenge was delivering the rich, sophisticated aesthetic associated with major film and global brand microsites, adapted for a regional market. This project cemented my transition into interface design, where aesthetics had to move in lockstep with functionality and the loading constraints of the internet at the time.

Motion Design and the Bachelor's Degree

“Kite Season” | Channel 10 Australia (2005)

In 2005, I entered a pivotal chapter of my career by moving to Australia to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design. This academic project, a 30-second commercial simulating a Channel 10 broadcast promo, was the perfect opportunity to merge my background in kitesurfing with the new frontier of digital animation.

The animation was built entirely in Flash, with ActionScript driving interactivity and flow. The technical bar was set high: every illustration and background was created in Illustrator and animated frame by frame, achieving a fluid, hand-crafted aesthetic that the automated tools of the time couldn’t reliably deliver.

To deliver a fully realized piece, I also explored sound design, composing the soundtrack in GarageBand using pre-recorded loops. The result was a one-man-band exercise where visual design, animation, and audio worked in concert to sell the energy of an extreme sports TV series. This project marks my definitive shift toward design that doesn’t just communicate, but moves and engages across time.

Design, Sound, and the Avant-Garde in Barcelona

Munir Hossn Experimental Web (2007)

During my postgraduate studies in Audiovisual Production in Barcelona, I developed this experimental website for multi-instrumentalist musician Munir Hossn. The project was conceived at the height of the high-impact web era, when Flash allowed the interface itself to become an extension of the artist’s work.

The goal wasn’t simply to inform, but to translate Munir’s complex musicality into a visual experience. The fluid navigation and organic transitions were designed to mirror the rhythm and sophistication of his sound, creating an immersion where users could feel the brand before they had read a single word.

Being in Barcelona, one of the world’s great design capitals, had a direct influence on the project’s aesthetic. This website served as a laboratory for exploring how audiovisual design could break free from the static grids of conventional web design, turning the browser itself into a digital stage.

Audiovisual at the World Capital of Clubbing

Pacha Barcelona (2008)

During my time in Barcelona, I worked as resident VJ at the iconic Pacha, running the visual projections night after night. It was a deep immersion into European nightlife culture. I wasn’t just operating the visuals each evening, but also creating design pieces and Motion Graphics videos for the club’s massive LED panels and projection screens.

Most of that archive, hundreds of artworks, videos, and photographic records, was lost when my luggage and a hard drive went missing on my return to Brazil. The “April Calendar 2008” poster and the promotional video are the precious few pieces that made it through, and they stand as examples of the vibrant visual style and technical precision demanded by a global brand like Pacha.

As a VJ, my work was about creating a symbiosis between music and image. Producing videos in After Effects for Pacha’s nights required dynamic thinking: the color palette, the rhythm of the edits, and the information hierarchy in the flyers all had to reflect the energy on the dance floor. These recovered pieces are small fragments of a year of intense creative output at the epicenter of Spain’s electronic music scene.

Real-Time Design for a Nation-Scale Project

São Francisco River Transposition (2009)

Returning to Brazil in 2009, I once again took on the role of Art Director at URBE Planning, this time leading one of the most nationally significant projects of the period: an interactive monitoring system for the São Francisco River Transposition works. We developed a platform installed on touchscreen kiosks strategically placed in the Minister of Integration’s office and in the anteroom of the Presidency of the Republic.

This was a complex software engineering and UI design undertaking. I built the system using Macromedia Flash with ActionScript integrated with XML files, allowing construction data to be updated remotely. The result was a dynamic control panel capable of monitoring the physical and financial progress of the country’s largest infrastructure project in real time.

This project marked my farewell to Flash, which from 2010 onward would gradually give way to HTML5. The system remained active and fully operational through the end of the presidential term in 2010, serving as a critical decision-making tool. It stands as a high point in the use of interactivity for public data transparency and governance in Brazil, pairing technical rigor with an interface that felt intuitive and forward-looking by the standards of its time.

Editorial Design, 3D Visualization, and Luxury Packaging

Purificar o Subaé (2010)

In 2010, I worked on the Urban Planning document for the depollution project of the Subaé River in Santo Amaro, Bahia. The work went well beyond conventional layout, delivering a high-value package that brought together strategic design, architectural visualization, and handcrafted presentation.

For the final presentation to authorities, I developed an exclusive packaging solution: a custom-made wooden box with a velvet interior lining, transforming the technical report into a prestige object. I oversaw the entire process, from the conception of the visual identity through to material selection and the final layout execution.

A technical highlight of this project was bringing the urban proposals to life. I used SketchUp to model the proposed interventions along the riverbanks, V-Ray for rendering, and Photoshop for post-production. These images were essential in allowing decision-makers to grasp the real impact of the proposed interventions, the restored quayside, the riparian vegetation, and the new cultural spaces envisioned for the city.

The document weaves together original black-and-white photography capturing the soul of Santo Amaro with clean technical maps and infographics. The result is a design piece that doesn’t simply propose technical solutions, it tells the story of a community and its call to be heard, framing environmental restoration as an act of civic dignity.

Pioneering the Dark Interface in Brazil

Softwell Maker 3 (2012)

In 2012, I was brought in to redesign Maker 3, Softwell’s flagship low-code platform. The project represented a generational leap for the software. Where the previous version, Maker 2, followed the standard Windows aesthetic of the time, with colorful icons and light interfaces, I chose to take the design in an entirely different direction.

Drawing inspiration from the handful of forward-thinking tools that were beginning to experiment with dark themes, professional editing suites and developer IDEs, I built the entire Maker 3 interface around a Dark Mode concept. The goal was to offer a more sophisticated, focused environment that reduced eye strain for developers, anticipating by years what would eventually become the industry standard for modern applications.

Beyond the radical shift in color palette, I undertook a thorough simplification of the icon system. The dated aesthetic of Maker 2 gave way to cleaner, more restrained flat icons that communicated each function with greater visual clarity. The introduction of a radial menu and minimalist login screens gave the platform a premium, technology-forward feel, significantly raising the perceived value of the product..

Design as Legacy and Memory

Tidinha: A Family Story (2012)

To celebrate my grandmother’s 80th birthday, I conceived and designed this book chronicling the saga of the Abreu family. More than a graphic project, it was an act of documentary preservation. The story of a family of migrants from Euclides da Cunha, deep in the Bahian sertão, who faced drought and hardship to rebuild their lives in the state capital.

The book was built by many hands. The prose was written with great sensitivity by my eldest brother, Márcio Abreu, and the illustrations punctuating the historical passages were created by a close friend. My role was to orchestrate these elements into a layout that honored both the solemnity and the tenderness of the journey being told.

The graphic design draws on an earthy color palette and paper textures that evoke the landscape of the Brazilian interior. I wove together old photographs from the family archive with illustrations rooted in the visual imagination of the Northeast, building a rhythm that carries the reader from the hardest of beginnings to the quiet triumph of a matriarch who, after losing her husband far too soon, raised ten children on her own.

“Tidinha: A Family Story” is proof that design reaches its highest purpose when it serves to keep a life’s story alive. This book was never made for bookstore shelves. It was made to become the most treasured object in our family library, preserving the strength of our origins for the generations that follow.

360° Photography and Virtual Tours

Google Street View Trusted (2017–2024)

In 2017, I expanded my creative practice into immersive photography. Using Google-recommended technology (the Ricoh Theta camera) I specialized in creating virtual tours, earning the official Street View Trusted badge in the process

More than a professional pursuit, this was driven by a genuine fascination with the medium. Most projects were done for friends’ businesses, born out of curiosity and a love for the craft rather than commercial ambition.

Over seven years, I developed projects published both directly on Google Maps and on custom platforms such as Kuula.co, offering tailored virtual navigation solutions. The impact of this work is both measurable and global: my photographs and tours have now surpassed 1.5 million views, connecting people to places around the world.

I remained active in the program until its global discontinuation at the end of 2024. One of the final milestones of this chapter was producing the virtual tour for academyEX in New Zealand — the institution where I completed my Master’s degree.

Premium Brand Building and Marketing Management

Ecohit Wellness Club (2017–2021)

Between 2017 and 2021, I was hired as Marketing Manager at Ecohit Wellness Club, a premium fitness club where I was responsible for building and managing the entire brand strategy from its opening through to its acquisition. The role was genuinely multidisciplinary, spanning business strategy, communications, social media management, events coordination, and digital innovation.

One of the cornerstones of this work was the physical environment itself. I was responsible for all internal and external visual communications, including large-scale wall installations that transformed the functional spaces of the gym into an inspiring, dynamic environment, reinforcing the brand’s identity around wellness and performance in every detail.

During the critical period of COVID-19, I led Ecohit’s transition to digital, implementing a Live Classes program that reached over 2,000 users, keeping the community engaged and the brand relevant even with the doors physically closed. This content strategy was instrumental in retaining members and strengthening the brand’s social value at its most vulnerable moment.

The success of the overall strategy culminated in 2021, when Ecohit was acquired by the largest premium fitness network in Brazil’s North and Northeast regions, with the unit becoming the standout location across the entire chain. It was proof that well-executed design and strategic brand management are genuine, high-value business assets.

 

Precision Design and Marine Woodworking

Rākau Surfboards (2022)

In 2022, I fulfilled a long-held ambition to merge my passion for surfing with product design through the launch of Rākau Surfboards. There’s a curious footnote to the name: I chose “Rākau” — the Māori word for wood — without any idea that New Zealand would soon become the setting for my Master’s degree. The project centers on the creation of hollow wooden surfboards, built from sustainable materials through a process that balances digital precision with hands-on craftsmanship.

The creative process begins on the computer, where the final design is exported for CNC cutting, ensuring precision in both hydrodynamics and structure. From that point on, the work becomes entirely manual: assembling the stringers, closing the frame with wooden skins, shaping, and final lamination in eco-friendly resin.

Every Rākau board is a one-of-a-kind piece, replacing the highly polluting polyurethane foam block with a living, durable structure. This project reflects my ability to move fluidly between precision software and woodworking tools, resulting in a high-performance product that is, at the same time, a functional work of art.

E-Commerce and Digital Curation

Sérgio Amorim: Virtual Gallery (2023)

In 2023, I was brought in to create the virtual gallery and sales platform for renowned visual artist Sérgio Amorim. The challenge was to build a digital environment that didn’t merely function as a storefront, but genuinely honored the aura and sophistication of the artist’s physical works.

The e-commerce platform was built entirely in WordPress, with WooCommerce as the sales engine. This technology stack enabled dynamic inventory management, secure transactions, and a user-friendly interface. The layout was conceived to be clean and deliberately minimal, ensuring that the colors and textures of the paintings remained the true protagonists of the browsing experience.

Beyond the technical architecture, I focused on information design to make the site feel like a natural extension of the artist’s studio. From the artist biography page through to the detailed presentation of each work, every element was crafted to convey Sérgio Amorim’s trajectory and standing, making it easier for collectors to connect with the art regardless of where in the world they happened to be.

Design for Governance and Citizenship

Portal da Política Urbana da Bahia (2024)

In 2024, I was responsible for the full conception and development of the Portal da Política Urbana da Bahia — the Urban Policy Portal of Bahia. The project was designed to serve as the digital backbone of urban planning across the state: a formative, integrative, and transparent instrument for public administrators, technical staff, and citizens alike.

Built entirely in WordPress, the portal was structured to support a complex network of collaboration and knowledge exchange. The technical challenge was to create a platform that brought together four fundamental pillars: a legislation library spanning federal, state, and municipal levels; content on the urban realities of Bahia; a collaborative space for knowledge sharing; and a channel for government technical assistance.

The interface was designed with civic accountability at its core. Through an intuitive and accessible layout, the portal enables the monitoring of urban policy through indicators aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. It is a dynamic tool that translates technical data into practical knowledge, strengthening democratic participation and ongoing capacity building across the entire state of Bahia.