Leandro Assis

Leandro Assis is an award-winning lettering artist and art director based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His bold, colorful style, playful illustrations, and unique lettering has appeared across projects for a range of clients including Apple, Disney, Netflix, Nike and Spotify. Above all, Leandro strives to use design as a tool to focus on the things that matter most to him, including Black culture, gender, and LGBTQ+ rights.

Hi Leandro! Tell us about yourself - how did you get to where you are today? When did you first become interested in art and design? 

I like to say that I didn’t become interested in art and design in a “normal” way. My family was never very fond of museums and I had very little contact with artistic movements at school. I understood that I liked design because I saw MTV vignettes and they blew my mind! I read a lot of magazines as a teenager and I always enjoyed seeing how the pages were made. I had the idea to make my own magazine as a collage made from those magazines I enjoyed. I cut out the articles that I liked the most and made a booklet with all of them. It was incredible!  I also made the covers and put together some elements that I liked including some little illustrations and stickers. I wrote over them and it was SO MUCH FUN. After that, I started to really understand what design was when a cousin looked at the project and said that I had a lot of potential. She introduced me to software so that I could work on my design projects on the computer. After that, I never stopped creating.

Designer and Illustrator Leandro Assis

How would you describe your design style and how has it changed over time? What drew you to lettering specifically? 

I started doing lettering because I didn't have the money to buy the typefaces I wanted. It was then that I began to understand that I also spent hours looking for fonts for a project and sometimes the idea was already in my head. From there, I started to explore that side of design more. I totally found myself because I already loved playing with fonts, so it was an almost obvious evolution for me. It became my focus.

I define my style today as lettering without fear of being imperfect, with touches of nostalgia. I use a lot of references from when I was a teenager and I really embrace the imperfections in what I do. My style has changed a lot, I think that early on, I left my personal references out of my work a bit. I thought they wouldn't fit with the projects I was doing (and in fact, not all of them did at that time). I started to understand my culture, embrace my difficulties, and I realized that the things I like and make me who I am could also help me find myself within what I do. I started using design as a tool for expression and saw value in what is not necessarily valued as a reference. That really helped me better understand my style and understand myself as a human being.

Are there particular themes you like to explore through your work? 

Yes! I love doing projects that focus on Black culture and the LGBTQIA+ community. It is where I fulfill myself, because I can use my references without fear of being myself. I also really like to get out of my comfort zone and see how my references can work in other environments. I like doing this precisely because I end up learning in the process, so it ends up being very worthwhile too.

You’ve worked with a range of clients including Nike, Apple, Netflix, Instagram, and more. What’s your creative process like and how do you approach creative collaboration with your clients? 

My process is very open, I always try to share all of my steps. From the first sketches through the choice of colors and definition of the style, I try to ensure that clients also have the power to choose and we work together to have a result where they can understand all the choices made during the process and can defend and present what was proposed. 

What has been one of your favorite projects to work on so far? What would be your dream project? 

I don't have a "dream project" anymore. I think every project is a project. There are some where the process was cooler than the result, some where the team was amazing and others where I learned valuable things. All are somehow important, even the ones where I didn't like the result. Especially those, because then I know what not to do to get that result again.

How do you find balance between client work and creating personal projects?

I would love to know this secret! I still feel that I need to improve a lot to find that balance between client work and personal projects. Last year, for example, I did very little personal work, but on the other hand, I only managed to take some time off because I worked on a lot of client work. Today, my work allows me to strike a middle ground between the two, I don't see them as such different things. But, I know I have a lot to improve in that aspect because I would love to be able to take that time to do more things for myself.

Do you have any design tools or resources you use regularly?

Mainly Illustrator and sketches on Procreate.

Where do you find inspiration? 

I’m inspired by what I study and see about my country, Brazil, by the LGBTQIA+ community, and by the people around me. I love to go around and find a type that I can use as a reference in some work. Train yourself to look for chance, when you're not really looking. The process ends up being more fluid.

What advice would you give to new designers who are just starting out? 

Don't make work just for other designers to see and don't take the work too seriously. Work is still just work. Try to have fun during the process. It may seem cliche. And it is. But it's the most important thing, it's where you spend most of your time on the project and it makes a lot of difference when you can have fun doing and looking for things out of the ordinary.

Thank you for sharing with us Leandro! To view more of Leandro’s work, visit his website and follow him on Instagram.

Leandro was nominated by Noun Project. All art courtesy of Leandro Assis.