( About )
Designer, artist,
builder.
The useful kind.
I’m a Portuguese multidisciplinary designer based in Leeds, working across product, brand, presentations, illustration and front-end — and planning my move to China.
- Now
- Presentation Associate, Williams Lea · Founder, Pholu Labs
- Education
- BA (Hons) Animation · University of Huddersfield
- Based
- Leeds, UK · planning a move to China
- Working in
- English · Portuguese · Mandarin (learning)
The short version
Six years of design that had to ship — and enough code to make sure it did.
I’m Ricardo Costa — a multidisciplinary designer and creative workflow coordinator with 6+ years across presentations, brand systems and marketing. At Williams Lea I support a confidential global private-equity client, designing executive-level work and managing the full production cycle.
My foundation is a BA in Animation, and I’ve taught myself enough front-end development (React and TypeScript) to build and ship my own products — useful for designing things that actually work, not just things that look good.
Timeline
How I got here.
Animation school, then freelance illustration, then commercial design, then the code to finish the job myself.
Supporting a confidential global private-equity client across offices in Europe and New York. Designing executive presentations, co-managing creative intake, prioritising requests and tracking jobs through production, QA and delivery.
Delivering design, branding and illustration for clients across Europe, North America and Asia — running projects end to end from brief to final delivery.
Created branding materials and visual assets, managing multiple design projects under deadlines.
Learned React, Next.js and TypeScript to build and ship my own design-led products.
Built a strong foundation in visual storytelling, design principles and digital art tools.
The formal grounding in typography, composition and print that the animation degree built on.
What I work with
Practice, tools,
and languages.
The disciplines I take work in, the software I do it in, and the languages I can do it in.
Capabilities
- Presentation design
- Brand identity
- UI/UX design
- Illustration
- Creative ops
- Front-end development
Tool belt
- Figma
- Adobe CC
- PowerPoint
- Think-cell
- React
- Next.js
- TypeScript
Languages
- Portuguese — native
- English — native-level
- French — professional
- Spanish — conversational
- Mandarin — beginner, studying
( Contact )
Let’s build
something people keep.
I’m open to design roles in China, freelance collaborations and interesting products. If you think we’d make something good together, send me a message.