With its famous carnival and eclectic street murals, Rio de Janeiro is one of the world’s most colorful cities. In his studio, Brazilian artist Leandro Assis creates kaleidoscopic lettering and stickers for brands including Nike, Google, and Netflix. Inspired by 1990s street style, his technicolor work seems to leap off the page and screen, while his art direction and lettering champions Black and LGBTQ+ communities. “I like to be very ‘pop’ in everything I do,” he says. “Color really helps me to achieve that.”

The self-confessed sneaker addict lives and breathes color. In early 2020, Assis combined a turquoise shirt with bright orange hair to collect a Latin American Design Award, and he can often be seen on Instagram dressed in electric pinks and bright bow-ties. This obsession with color and design started as a teenager, he recalls, when he hoarded popular Brazilian magazines like Capricho, MTV Brazil, and Mundo Estranho in his bedroom. Inspired by these publications, Assis embarked upon a career as a magazine illustrator and designer. “I’m very happy to have been able to work with magazines early in my career,” he says.  

As a magazine designer, Assis couldn’t afford the lettering he needed for his layouts, so he created his own. “I ended up understanding that there’s a whole universe in lettering, and I found myself,” he says. Type also helped Assis execute his ideas exactly as he wanted. “It gave me freedom...Working with words through lettering is a very good thing, and what interests me the most is the feeling that it awakens in people...Nothing goes unnoticed.” Today, Assis creates lettering to help him inject his culture, personal style, and humor into the design process.

“I usually start by writing with words what I need to draw in different ways and compositions,” Assis says. “Very simple, without any concern for the design.” Next, he selects the best options and turns to references from posters, CD covers, music videos, and books. He is looking for a visual vibe. “This part is very important because I am a very visual person,” Assis explains. “I need to see images to better understand what I want.”

Assis is a fan of Adobe Illustrator, particularly the Pencil tool, which he says feels just like the traditional drawing process, including any imperfections. “Nothing takes from the coolness of the sketch drawing; I like to keep as much of the original as possible in my vectors,” he explains. “I like that it looks almost finished. Nothing’s perfect.” As soon as he has finalized the style, he turns to color. Using Photoshop’s Hue and Saturation tool, he starts to tinker with the palette, pulling on sliders and experimenting. Assis is a “big enthusiast” when it comes to the Recolor Artwork tool, he says. “I could spend hours [with it].”

“It may seem like a cliché, but I feel that people are very attached to trendy colors,” he says. Instead, he wishes designers would strive for originality. “Test playing with the Hue and Saturation in Photoshop, search for color palettes in different places, make a list of palettes you’ve used and try making a reduced palette with some of them. All of this can help you take certain shortcuts in defining colors for your next projects.” 

Assis has three rules when it comes to choosing color palettes: Rule one is to include his personality. Rule two is simplicity. One example that fused both rules is his recent sticker project for Pride, commissioned by Snapchat, when Assis experimented with a mix of lettering styles, and reduced the rainbow to three key colors: a yellow, purple, and blue. “Before this project, I did things with no color limits for the compositions, and then I started to appreciate palettes with fewer colors. And, in some cases, it helps to convey the message,” he says.