Growing up in Brazil, Marina Willer’s parents were both extremely creative: her mother, an artist, and her late father, an architect. In her youth, Willer says he would also make furniture and could draw “beautifully.” During our far-reaching conversation in Barcelona, the designer explained that her connection to Brazil has only become “stronger” over the years.
Despite this, she lives and works in London. “Things that you accumulate through your life, everything that you learn, you absorb,” she says. “We’re like a sponge; they all become part of the mixture. My family is very diverse.”
In 2017, Willer directed a film about her father’s family’s escape from Nazi-occupied Prague to a new life in Brazil that premiered at Cannes Film Festival. Titled ‘Red Trees,’ the story is Willer’s attempt to understand today’s refugee crisis through the story of her own family, one of only 12 Jewish families to survive the Nazi occupation of Prague during World War II. It is told through Willer and her father Alfred’s voice.
Willer describes the film as the most “profound thing” she has ever attempted and extremely “personal” to her. She adds that with the issue of “intolerance” in the world today, it makes the project even more important.
“It’s about celebrating that different cultures and origins can be more unified. So, it’s the opposite of what’s going on in Israel and Gaza today,” she explains. “We can live together. We’re all humans. What are we doing? Killing children and women at that scale? From every perspective, we should be able to co-exist.”
She continues that making the film enabled her to get to know her father better. “I didn’t think that I understood him until that point, because people who have survived that scale of pain and war, they shut down and are closed,” Willer says. “And so, he never talked about things, and the film allowed that space for us to, and it was very moving. That was towards the very end of his life.”
Willer feels lucky to have had those moments with her father, for “herself, for him and for the story”, and says that working on that project was completely different from what she does in her daily work.
Another early and important mentor and influence on Willer’s career was her lecturer Margaret Calvert at the Royal College of Art, where she did her master’s degree. Calvert is one of the most lauded designers in the world and someone Willer describes as “very out of the box”.
“She really challenged me to get out of any conventions,” adds Willer. “I think she really helped to shake things up and get me to a place that was more creative again.”
Whatever that place is, it has allowed Willer’s work to become highly recognized in the design industry and beyond. After finishing her degree, she spent 13 years at Wolff Olins, from 1998 to 2011, as head creative director, before joining Pentagram as the first female partner in its London studio in 2012.
During her career, Willer has led the design of major brand identity schemes including Rolls-Royce, Tate, Amnesty International, Serpentine Galleries, Oxfam, Moholy Nagy Foundation and Opera Ballet of Flanders.
In 1999, her work for the Tate Modern museum, while at Wolff Olins, remains a seminal one for Willer. “I was very young, I was lucky to stumble across the opportunity of an internal pitch, and the idea I was proposing went forward,” she explains.
“It was really hard for me, the environment was much more competitive, and I didn’t have the experience to know how you really take the idea and shape it. So, I worked with others. It’s not a job I did on my own. It was stressful; I was not ready for the challenge. But I mention it because it was such a unique solution, different from everything else at the time, and it defined, for me, many things that came after.”
As a designer, she says diversity is always at the core of her work – something that living in London has also greatly inspired – and being “inclusive” throughout the entire process while working “collectively”.
“We create frameworks where people can and should participate and create with us. It’s a challenge. It’s not always easy,” she explains about her method. “Because you also need to create solutions that are single-minded and design is a skill that you learn through life, through studying and dedication. So, how do you find that balance of bringing your skills as designers, as a team? It’s never a one person job.”
Willer says she finds it inspiring to see just how many young people, even in “hard times,” are doing so much with their work in terms of social causes, and that it shows just how “worth it” creativity is.
“We have a lot to do as designers to help the world go in the right direction,” she adds. “We should give more hope to younger folks, because it is daunting,” says Willer, who asks, “How can we find hope and turn things around? The clock is ticking.”
There’s an empathy that she has toward young creatives nowadays and she explains that even though it can be “hard” to grow older, what it brings is a sense of “control” about yourself.
“I still get a lot of anxiety about getting everything done on time and dealing with all the aspects of life, but I don’t feel scared of the jobs,” she continues. “If you put creative processes in place and if you really listen to the strategic needs of every project client, you will get good work out of it.”
Willer keeps coming back to the notion of “collectiveness” and collaboration, and you can tell it truly is what she thrives on in her professional life. “I’ve worked in bigger agencies and I’ve seen a lot of the time that the more masculine approach to leadership was always about competition between individuals, and that caused a lot of anxiety,” she states. “I don’t believe that’s helpful or necessary. While with my team, I try to create an environment that is joyful.”
The designer is always involved in each aspect of projects, but says that she feels a great sense of satisfaction that her team can all feel proud of the work, having each played a part in making it. She wants to create a “safe space” for creatives to grow within Pentagram.
Personally, Willer loves being in the studio, crafting, making and being creative. “I try as much as possible to bring the spirit of experimentation,” she explains, noting that it can also be with AI, although she feels we have only taken ‘baby steps’ in understanding its capabilities.
“And then there’s a lot of making things in unusual ways. And the unusual ways, to me, are more and more what defines my difference.”
At home, she’s a mother to twins who are about to sit their A levels at school. “When I’m just painting or doing artworks, it’s just heaven,” she adds. “You can be in nature. You can sit outside in the garden or in the park. When I travel, I always bring a little art bag so I can sit and draw.”
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