LTUXs Identity

Challenge

The challenge was to create a visual identity for the São Paulo chapter of the Ladies That UX community. Each chapter is encouraged to have its own visual representation based on the culture of its respective city. LTUX is a global community with over 70 cities worldwide, and 14 chapters in Brazil alone. With the theme in hand, it was time to think about how to develop it further. But if we're talking about UX, why not apply best practices and dive deeper into researching the context?

The UX Market in São Paulo

When looking at the Brazilian market, it's clear that the UX scene is booming, especially in São Paulo. This rise in UX is seen as a positive, with new courses and content emerging all the time. As a result, salaries and opportunities tend to be higher here.

São Paulo is an excellent location for gathering professionals, bringing constant events and various ways to interact with the community.

However, it's not all perfect. Upon closer inspection, it's evident that women continue to lag behind in the fight for salary equality and career progression. These indicators show that, while we are part of this movement, we still need to constantly reinforce our relevance in the market and our differentiators.

Women continue to have to prove their worth. Source: Panorama UX 2020

Representing Women in São Paulo

Although São Paulo seems like an easy place to create a variety of female representations due to its diverse population from all over the world, it was still challenging to identify and highlight what truly defines this vast identity.

Being from Rio and living in São Paulo, I always had an idealized view of women here being more engaged, fearless, strong, and independent. My desire to move here was based on the belief that I would grow professionally and gain more future perspectives. I see many incredible women personalities in São Paulo, especially in the fields of technology and UX. Women's groups unite for a bigger cause, mutual support, and shared learning. It’s undeniable that these initiatives are stronger and more impactful in São Paulo, and today they are inspiring other states, with women's groups in tech growing across Brazil.

Focus on Diversity

Based on this cultural mix that the city provides, we see that there is indeed space for much diversity. Even though still a minority, it occupies a considerable space in defining the role of women in São Paulo, and this was one of the main focuses in creating the identity for Ladies That UX São Paulo.

So, Where to Start?

One of the things I enjoy most is researching references for what I have in mind and where I want to go. Whether for more ideas or to see references of poses, expressions, colors, styles, and so on. Pinterest always helps me a lot in this phase and continues to be a great ally in presenting what I didn’t even know I needed to find.

My starting point was to initially understand how women were represented in crowds and how to approach their uniqueness amidst that.

I created a board with references of illustrations that seemed to make sense for this situation and others that conveyed a similar feeling to where I wanted to go. Some illustrations focused more on highlighting women’s personalities, others on feminist causes, but all with the strong impression of representing unique women.

References Everywhere

My aim was to convey that the women of São Paulo were not an idealized label or a “hashtag,” but rather a living identity—representing the whole.

Women who are present and working. Women who stand out by their accomplishments and peculiarities. Women who inspire and move others. Who make mistakes and learn together. Based on these shared ideals, I created 12 initial illustrations of our Ladies in São Paulo.

Personality in Minimalism

It's interesting to observe that when we talk about representation and diversity, we are mainly talking about characteristic traits and cultural behaviors that define us. That’s why, when I decided to go for a minimalist approach with flat design, I knew it wouldn’t be an easy choice.

Representing women a nd their ethnicities without detailing their eyes and noses is challenging—they carry so much information. By removing that, their essence is neutralized. So, in this project, the focus was on representing identity through hairstyles. Each of the Ladies has a hairstyle that defines her. I made sure to include short, long, tied-up, and colorful hair, reflecting the different moments in a woman’s busy day in São Paulo.

What stood out for me in this project was a comment from a friend when I asked her opinion on the representation of women in media and art:

"Look, in general, I don’t feel represented even with diversity. Where are the brunettes? I wear glasses, I’m from Tech. I’m part of this world too."

So, besides skin tones, I added small accessories like earrings, piercings, glasses, and even our everyday headphones to reinforce the unique personality of our Ladies. Each one with her own identity, but when together, they fit perfectly.

Creation Process

The entire project was done in Figma, which seemed challenging at first since I wasn’t used to using it for illustration. However, despite not having many specific tools for this, it had the essentials, and I managed to handle it well throughout the process.

I usually use Illustrator, but since I didn’t have a license at the moment, I decided to try Figma for its accessibility and free version. And it worked out!

The illustrations were overlapped to give a sense of sisterhood and unity among the women. Therefore, the choice of colors was very important and needed not only to match but also contrast with each other. I chose colors that conveyed the essence of a UX woman in a highly technical yet deeply human profession:

• Coral: A mix of pink and orange that encourages carefree experiences and symbolizes the natural need for optimism in the pursuit of joy.

• Blue: Represents knowledge, research, intellectual advancement, technology, communication, and self-expression.

• Yellow: Reinforces mental processes, happiness, and warmth.

Along with various skin tones, lips, and the classic black-and-white contrasts to enhance the composition and represent diversity.

Visual Composition

To complement the Ladies illustrations, I used some free vectors from Freepik, mainly brush strokes, abstract elements, and geometric shapes. This helped me create some pieces for the community, such as presentations and social media posts. I kept this playful, dynamic approach to maintain the identity fun and unique. The lines aren’t straight, nothing is symmetrical—this is about breaking out of the mold and standing out, just like our Ladies.

Final Considerations

Illustration has always been something dear to me. My mother was a plastic artist and made me fall in love with the hobby. Despite loving it, I rarely sit down to illustrate or practice, due to insecurity. When I illustrate, I tend to be very demanding with myself, comparing and being harsh unnecessarily. But I enjoy challenging myself from time to time and pushing myself to keep improving my craft.

Despite my insecurities, this project was light and enjoyable. I had the chance to work on it during my vacation, so I had all the time in the world to research, test, and revisit our Ladies.

I hope this project inspires more women to explore the wonders of our field and that it motivates other cities to bring UX closer to our lives, helping to grow our community in Brazil.