Behind the LDW26 Poster: An Interview with Designer Joana Areal

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Meet the Designer

Graduated in Communication Design from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, Joana Areal holds also a Master’s degree in Communication Strategies and Art Direction from Elisava, Barcelona. She is a graphic designer, developing and coordinating projects across graphic, editorial, and web design, often intersecting with the fields of fashion and cultural production. Her work is driven by a strong focus on visual narratives and the exploration of communication systems across multiple media. She has collaborated with a range of cultural and commercial clients, including the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech, Lisboa Fashion Week, and Area Store, among many other projects. Her work often involves the creation of visual identities, editorial systems, and exhibition communication. Alongside her professional activity, she teaches in the field of design, dividing her time between studio practice and education, with each informing and enriching the other. Her work has been published internationally by publishers and magazines such as Victionary, Laurence King, Rockport, Design2context, Design and Design, Sandu Publishing, Index Book, Wallpaper*, Novum, NEO2, and Slanted Magazine, among others.

What do you consider to be the key elements that all great posters share?

We begin with a question that unsettles me, because it assumes a distinction between “good” and “bad” posters that, even today, I find difficult to define rigidly. I’ll think in terms of functionality and context: there are posters that fulfil their purpose, speak the right language, and convey the message clearly within the visual ecosystem they belong to.

But beyond this functional dimension, the most striking posters tend to share another layer, an ability to create tension, surprise, or even discomfort. They are pieces that don’t exhaust themselves in an immediate reading and that invite the eye to stay, to return.

How do you know when a design is finished?

I think I know a design is finished when I feel I can hand it over to other people. When it is ready to circulate through time, to take on other forms, and to stand on its own.

It’s the moment when the project stops depending exclusively on me and begins to have an internal logic strong enough to be appropriated, adapted, and even transformed without losing its identity. In that sense, finishing is not closing, but ensuring that the system is stable enough to continue living beyond its point of origin.

How would you describe your visual language and what influences have shaped it?

My visual language, although it may appear chameleonic, is always grounded in the same principles: text and structure.

There is a search for stability in my work, regardless of the formal outcome. I’m interested in building clear and robust systems, where typography is central and the organisation of information is as important as its content.

My references come mainly from Swiss design and from rawer approaches close to brutalism, but also from contemporary contexts, especially those connected to fashion. More than following a fixed aesthetic, I try to maintain rigour and clarity as a foundation, adjusting the graphic language to each context.

What effect were you aiming to achieve with the Lisbon Design Week poster?

With the Lisbon Design Week triptych, I sought to create an effect that reflected the creative process itself: exploring repetition, cycle, and stability, but also interruption, error, and deviation. I wanted the posters to convey a rhythmic, structured, and methodical system, but one that is alive, capable of admitting variations and flaws, as happens in design processes.