All good projects have a moment before direction is clear — where the real questions haven’t been named yet, and the temptation is to skip straight to form. I work in that moment. Not to delay decision, but to make it possible.
My practice is built around listening and naming. I sit with a person or institution until I can hear what they’re actually trying to do, beneath what they think they want or the brief they arrived with. Then I give it back to them in language that can be shared. From there, we start a process of co-creation that develops new perception, new language and the capacity to sustain both independently. What emerges varies — a positioning document, a brand architecture, a narrative framework, a set of criteria for future decisions. What stays is the shift.
How I work
Diagnose
to map context, tensions and goals.
Position to clarify identity, purpose and direction.Architecture to align who you are with how you show and tell.Action to put narrative into practice, in collaboration with your team or my partners.
When to call me
My work is particularly useful when the problem isn’t yet visible, when something isn’t working but no one can name why. When you need to translate your organisation’s role in the world, and take people with you. When your work is not being recognised in the way it could or is misunderstood. When you are busy with the urgent and can’t quite get to the important.
You think you need a website or a logo to exist.
Something isn’t working, but you can’t clearly say what.
There’s internal misalignment.
You’re dealing with complexity that is hard to show and tell.
You’re navigating a shift in scale, structure or direction.
You feel stuck between multiple directions.
What you do is not fully understood from the outside.
I can help you
find the words.
find the words.
I partner with people, brands and institutions to articulate and achieve their strategic goals through clarity and meaningful direction. I work in the stage where meaning is still open, and where the conditions for what follows can be shaped.
Over time, I noticed the same pattern repeatedly: people expecting a new visual identity to produce a new way of being and doing. This led me to focus less on outputs and more on the underlying questions that precede them.
I developed this practice through independent strategic work across culture, social impact and the arts, and through six years at Brotéria — where I contributed to its full-transformation from a publication into a contemporary cultural institution.
I work in Portuguese and English, independently and in collaboration with a network of partners.
CollaborationsAna Paganini
Atelier Embaixador
Blazon Pictures
Brotéria
Cabral Moncada Leilões
Carminho
CRIVO Festival Mulheres Compositoras
Design Council UK
Digital Catapult
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa
Galp
Gonçalves Vieira—Cruz
imatch
Jesuit Refugee Service
Maria Francisca Macedo
Pegadas
O Príncipe
Remote Symbiosis collective
Writing
As Mulheres do Mar (essay), Brotéria 2023
Dune (cultural critique), Brotéria 2021
Ethos (cultural critique), Brotéria 2020
AwardsGulbenkian Heritage Prize – Maria Tereza & Vasco Vilalva, 2024 — Brotéria. Board member, design and communications lead.
4th place — Open Competition, Installation of the National Museum of Music at Mafra National Palace, 2021. Narrative framework and visual identity system, in collaboration with Gonçalves Vieira-Cruz Architects.
Press
Featured in Expresso, RTP, Público.
Contact
beneditapg@gmail.comwhatsapp