Art, City and Culture: How Ívanno revives Brazil's visual identity

Mar 25, 2025

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From his experiences between Recife and Rio, Ívanno absorbed the northeastern culture and the rhythm of the streets, as well as the power of design as a form of expression. With a focus on the artistic occupation of urban spaces using works that blend design, art, and Brazilian identity, Ívanno has been bringing an authentic and striking approach to the visual scene.

In addition to exhibitions, he is also involved in editorial projects and collaborations with brands and artists who have a unique perspective on Brazil's visual culture. His goal is to expand the reach of Brazilian design beyond traditional spaces, showing that our graphic identity can also be a global reference.

We spoke with Ívanno about his inspirations, creative processes, and the impact of his art on the urban landscape. Check it out below:

You were born in Recife and grew up in the interior of Rio de Janeiro - how did your experiences in these places shape your artistic work?

I believe that before shaping my work as a designer, then as an artist, it shaped my humanity and sensitivity to understand what really made me human. Growing up on the suburban margins of two former capitals of Brazil made me surrounded by conflicts and good taste throughout my life.

In Recife, I grew up around the mangroves of Ibura de Baixo, and it was there that I learned the value of culture. I would say that when you are born in the northeast, it is impossible not to feel deeply impacted by the local culture, the flavors, sounds, social textures, and the pride of being northeastern. To this day, I remember how lively the New Year’s celebrations were, with Gonzaga, Elba Ramalho, Alceu Valença, and Padre Zezinho playing at the corners. Although the priest is from Minas Gerais, he is very present in northeastern Christian homes. In addition to the classics, there was also plenty of forró of all kinds. I also remember how the La Ursa band caused both fear and splendor when they passed on the other side of the gate from Grandma Zefinha's and Grandpa Manoel's house, shouting, "La Ursa wants money, those who don't give are cheap." My father, knowing my fear and fascination, would give me two reais and, amidst festive pushes, encouraged me to pass the money through the gate, motivating me not to be the cheapskate this time, sparing our family from the carnival chaos happening in front of our door. With the money in hand, La Ursa and her entourage would leave us, without retaliation, in search of new victims for their carnival joy. The famous cuscuz, for example, which was the first solid food I ingested in my life, is still the basis of my daily diet, my favorite food, the northeastern gold.

In Rio, I became just another Recife migrant rooted in the streets and favelas of the "marvelous city," just like my master Bezerra da Silva. If you look closely, the favelas of Rio de Janeiro are filled with northeasterners. We have done a lot for this city; our bodies still hold up the Rio-Niterói bridge. I came here with a very reduced family nucleus: only my father, my mother, my brother, and I, aiming to build our life in the southeast, where in the 90s it was still believed to be the place where things happened in Brazil. At least, that is what my parents believed. They were not wrong; the world’s spotlight on Brazil still remains on the Rio-São Paulo axis. When we came here, we first spent a time in Nova Iguaçu and then crossed the city to reach the Reta Housing Complex, or BNH da Reta, Retolândia to the close ones (in Itaboraí), where I spent my entire childhood and adolescence. During this time, we spent our year-end vacations with our family in Recife, crossing from southeast to northeast in long car trips. Because of this, from a young age, I had the opportunity to see the natural and graphic landscape of Brazil metamorphosing before my eyes. It was in Rio that I also discovered funk and its branches, samba, and rap, just as it happened in Recife, influenced by the streets and corners. My parents didn’t let my brother and me listen to anything ‘from the world’ inside the house. Speaking of funk, to me, the proibidão and forró have always had more similarities than differences, and this has always fascinated me greatly. The exaggeration, spontaneity, sonic genius, the risqué, the forbidden, all of this has always been part of my imagination.

Certainly, amidst these experiences, I also ended up experimenting and consuming a lot of foreign stuff, especially in the audiovisual and music fields. It was impossible to be oblivious to this with open TV at home for more than 20 years. Cartoons, toy commercials, and open video clip channels were part of my daily consumption. I see that this was also very important for understanding the various forms of expression and languages that existed beyond the localities I traversed.

As an artist I really admire named Olirum says, it is more important to be a filter than a sponge, and that is what I do. After all, Brazil is an unnegotiably anthropophagic and mixed country, that absorbs, transforms, and throws back into the world. Consequently, this also shapes my artistic practice.

How did your interest in art and design arise? Was there any influence to pursue this area?

I discovered design existed during pre-university preparation at about 23 years old. Since I spent most of my life away from metropolises and postcard locations, I had difficulty accessing much information. I only discovered there was a university when I was 18, in my third year of high school. The following year I was already working as a doorman to fund my studies in pre-university preparation. At that time, I believed that the area of knowledge closest to what I wanted to study was Advertising and Public Relations. Since childhood, I had been fascinated by toy commercials that played during cartoon breaks on Globo, SBT, and Band. It was very curious that even as a child/adolescent, I thought: "How do these guys manage to create such beautiful visuals that capture my attention and make me want to have those toys?" I was even fully aware that I couldn't have them, as my parents always made clear their priorities in relation to money at home. Although I also really liked the jingles from these advertising campaigns, I was much more drawn to the visual part of it. Who doesn’t remember how bold the Max-Steel and Hot Wheels commercials were in the 90s? They were beautiful, amazing! When I discovered that it was possible to study a specific field of knowledge that I liked, I aimed right for advertising.

I attempted the university entrance exam for three consecutive years, always juggling work and study. In the first two years, I didn’t get into the course and institution I wanted, which was Advertising and Public Relations at the Federal Fluminense University (UFF), primarily because it was a university closer to my hometown. In those first two attempts, I ended up getting into alternative options but refused to dedicate my study time to secondary interest areas. I wanted to master the visual aspects of things. More than that, my main interest in going to university was to learn to think about everything that crossed my mind. I always believed that the ideas I had and the things I reflected on had great value, but I didn’t know how to organize them to make them real. That’s why I dedicated myself to reaching a study position in an area I loved.

In my third attempt, I realized that if I didn’t get into advertising, I would dedicate myself to the craft of cutting hair, something I had already started to get into the previous year and had more family support than entering university. That year, I don’t remember how, but I discovered the design course, which at that time I saw as something similar to what I liked about advertising. So I decided to bet everything on those two areas of knowledge. To my happiness, and living up to the long years of attempts, I got into the Design program at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and also into advertising at PUC-RIO with a full scholarship through PROUNI. I was the first in my small migrant nucleus to achieve this feat. At that time, UFRJ was on strike, so I decided to begin my academic journey at PUC, and after a year of studying advertising and learning to write advertising copy, I eventually chose to migrate within PUC itself to the visual communication design course, which seemed to have more to do with what I ultimately wanted. It was the best decision of my life. Design changed the way I think about life and see the world.

You graduated in Visual Communication from PUC. Was there a specific reason that guided you to this field?

I think every young person from the countryside feels the impact of starting to attend a university very strongly. There are many layers of access you must break through when you live far from these big institutions. I say this because when I arrived at PUC, I had no idea about the monumental grandeur of this university, nor its location, which is simply in the wealthiest area of Rio. I spent my first year taking a geographical, psychological, and visual beating commuting from my house with dirt roads to study on the best asphalt in Rio de Janeiro. As the subjects in advertising and public relations were very focused on writing, I felt frustrated. However, one of these subjects, which was a break from writing, was called "History of Thought," and it was in it that I, a compulsive thinker, found a home to reflect on which direction my life would take.

The teacher of this subject was named Remo, and I had post-class conversations with him about whether I should continue insisting on advertising or dive into design once and for all. I remember that in one of the last classes of this subject, after reading the story of Faust, I had a deep existential crisis and went to speak with Remo once more. He listened to my appeal and asked me the following question: "If you were to live your life again exactly as you have lived it until now, minute by minute, day after day, choice after choice, what decision would you make?" That gave me material to think about for months until I decided to take another risk and change my course within the university after already spending a year dedicated to advertising. Right from the first subjects I started taking in design, I was sure that I was finally learning to think about those ideas and reflections that had always lingered in my fertile mind since I was younger. I can say with certainty that the design course in visual communication at PUC-Rio taught me to think.

Since then, I take my design practice very seriously, reflecting my life story, which has always been filled with good visual references, I would say enchanting ones. I have very cherished memories of handmade signs inside and outside markets, little shops, the visuals present on the roads I traveled with my family crossing Brazil to feel nostalgia for our homeland, the signs of small neighborhood businesses where I lived, with improvised street signs, with the gridded houses in sankofas from my favela contrasting with the imposing skyscrapers of the city center. I feel like a large parabola capturing and reflecting signals at all times. The way I see the world is how I execute and conceive my visual works.

Your work is recognized for its authenticity and the blend of Brazilian popular culture. How do you describe your creative process?

My experiences are an essential part of this process. Talking about Brazilian popular culture is speaking the language I know, it's talking about my family, the friends I've made along my journey, the music I've enjoyed, the foods that make me salivate every single day. Explaining my process in detail is difficult because I am a methodological experimentalist.

Reflecting a bit, I can say that my process is experimental and accumulative. Since I started taking my visual studies seriously, I have been weaving a large mesh of possibilities, and as the projects and demands come in, I access some knots in this mesh to propose results. Each project is a completely different dive.

The popular lettering is highlighted in most of your works. Do you believe that this typography defines Brazilian design?

In my view, popular typography can never be considered the definition of Brazilian design. Defining Brazilian visuals through one lens is to reduce all the overwhelming possibilities we have here. We are a tropical country, compulsively diverse. When Darcy Ribeiro says "several Brazils within Brazil," he is absolutely right, and this applies in our design practice. Even with all the social and economic disparity, it is a country with an abundance context, and this abundance precedes the entire field of knowledge of design. We must respect that above all.

I say this because design in Brazil is just over 60 years old; there is still much to investigate and assert about national identity. We are in this process. This field of knowledge came entirely imported, primarily through the German practice of design making, which, in turn, built that practice after a terrible period of scarcity post-World War II. This led them to adopt minimalism as a design practice to optimize industrial production that needed to supply an entire nation with few resources and fulfill a context of lack. Lack of materials, lack of money for more complex investments in producing a new broken Germany. I see they brilliantly navigated this scenario, consolidating a line of reasoning that spread all over the globe, reaching us.

Although I think it’s critically important to introduce design to Brazil through the German lens, I believe it’s time for our self-analysis on the subject. Lina Bo Bardi, Aluísio Magalhães, one of the founders of the first design school in Brazil, and Fátima Filizola are crucial names in this self-reflection. Not far from them, I see my practical work actively contributing to this.

I discussed this topic in my final coursework in college, bringing this research beyond the academic field and I intend to continue talking about this subject until I run out of breath.

What were your first artistic influences, and what impact did they have on your journey?

When I started my research on popular typography, I confess that my influences were works by authors whose names I am not even aware of until now. One of those who fascinated me, for example, was the author(s) of the sign "SOS TREES," found on walls all over Rio de Janeiro, especially in the city’s metropolitan areas. Seeing an SOS Trees sign after the Rio-Niterói bridge was something that made me feel at home, even being so far away. Delving deeper into this influence aspect, when I was younger, a reference that has never left my mind and that completely shaped my good taste for things are two foreign references. Strange to say that, right? But it's true. Having been a child raised indoors to protect against violence between drug trafficking and police in the areas where I lived, television became a powerful visual educator. So, the cartoons that aired on open TV were the best part of my day. Especially early in the morning, when Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes were on. Perhaps these two cartoons were my first great enchantment with visual arts for which I express a bit of resemblance in my graffiti work today. I still find the way these cartoons constructed their visual narrative enchanting, always with classical music and watercolor-painted backgrounds, entertaining characters, and scenarios. I identified so much with them; they reminded me of myself.

Since discovering classical music through these cartoons, I insist on listening to it even today, especially while working, like on MEC FM, those types of things. The people around me never liked listening to it with me as much, but I don’t know, it touches my heart and senses in a beautiful way. It always seems like a surprise what will happen next when listening to classical or instrumental music. Liking this type of music has plunged me into Brazilian works that deeply move me and inspire me to reach my greatest inspirations from Brazilian artists, like the brilliant Baden Powell, Alceu Valença, Moacir Santos, Stan Getz, and João Gilberto. Beyond them, in music, also on this pedestal are Evinha, Gal Costa, Cátia de França, Bezerra da Silva, Edu Lobo, Jorge Ben, Jorge Aragão, and Azymuth. Music greatly influences my work, my processes, and my production as a whole. It is an incredibly powerful cultural tool.

Regarding your thesis project, what motivated you to develop the project "VerBRacular"? How do you perceive the relationship between street design and academic design in Brazil?

My biggest motivator was not seeing my graphic reality in the academic environment. I wanted it to be possible for people from the place I came from to be able to attend a graphic design college understanding that their reality can be the main fuel to inspire and create powerful, timeless, and consistent visuals, just like the Germans and Americans we study so much.

Street design is the design of the people for the people. Communication is an inherent human need, and I see street design as a genuine popular initiative to communicate its resistance, existence, or adaptation to the economic system we live in by selling its products, services, or labor. Academic design, on the other hand, seeks to respond to the market concerning the field of design; it meets the need to train people to serve the industry. The relationship between one and the other is socio-economic and feeds back into itself. The industry inevitably influences consumption and, in turn, crosses the lives of the popular, which aims to achieve this industrial influence. For example, we see a massive migration from manual signs to printed signs, or imitation of letters from large foundries or digital fonts by manual lettering designers and artists.

At the same time, academic design, being a reflection of the industry, ends up feeding off the organic design found in the streets to alleviate its scarcity of ideas and create new products that interest the character of popular consumption. I see my work as a chimera between these two worlds, locating itself in a place I know well, especially as a young Black mestizo in Brazil: the non-place.

In your journey, you’ve collaborated with renowned artists such as Cleyton Rasta, Anitta, and Attoxxá. How have these partnerships influenced your work and creative process?

I am very happy that my work has reached other artists involved in both pop culture and Brazilian popular culture, which I see as completely different things, but they touch upon each other at various moments. These artists gave me the freedom to execute expressive authorial work that met the conceptual expectations of their own, which is a significant personal milestone. I truly believe that a solitary work perishes, so connecting with these people is a positive response to what I always intended to sum up. Not just with them, but collaborating with artists from my locality, like G2ois, Liu Bob, PhiLL Oladele, TK, Antonio Constantino, Raro, Taleko, and KBrum, or with institutions I respect greatly, such as the Museum of Art of Rio and the Caixa Cultural, also makes me feel this way.

What are your upcoming projects, and what can we expect from your next collaborations and artistic creations?

This year is very special, but due to contractual reasons, I cannot reveal much about what’s to come, and that makes me anxious! What I can say is that there will be exhibitions where people can see Brazilian design in action and the deconstruction of this design when it touches contemporary art. Currently, I am featured at the Museum of Art of Rio in the exhibition “FUNK: A shout of audacity and freedom” until the end of March this year in downtown Rio de Janeiro with my corridor, which is one of my biggest achievements, and it actually serves as the entrance to the exhibition within the museum, spanning over forty meters long and featuring plenty of paint, spray, and graffiti. Additionally, I also have a piece displayed in the same exhibition in Room 2, titled “Little talk, a lot of hustle.” I am also on display at OCUPÁ, showcasing an exhibition titled “BAILE,” at Gávea, where I exhibit my first vertical track “The police stop those who...” Both exhibited works are signs made on raffia, a material well-known for being the support of famous banners announcing dance parties, pagode, events, or thank you notes to the mayor for post-election works. Moreover, I always share references, processes, news, and new productions on my Instagram @soletrabraba.