Our guest, Aurélia de Azambuja has been speaking at conferences more recently with her talk, “How to make the logo bigger when the world is burning?” – a provocation that confronts what it means to practice design in today’s world, and more broadly, how to find meaning in design at all. It’s a particularly dark time for humanity, and, once we caught wind of the talk as it went semi viral on Instagram, we were drawn to find out more about Aurelia and her presentation. We were curious about her role in the design world as a member of Base Brussels’ team, how these provocations and honest opinions intersect with her daily work life, and her thoughts on being a designer during great uncertainty and escalating upheaval. She was joined by Editorial Director of Base Julie Tentler to provide even more context to the talk and the culture and life working at Base.

Aurélia is a Senior Designer at Base Design Brussels, where she has been working for the last 8 years. She orchestrates teams of copywriters, illustrators, and art directors to bring bold, conceptually rooted design to life. Her passion about the power of design as a tool for change has her frequently (and now more publicly) asking the big questions – challenging her creative approach, her team, and the design world at large.

Julie Tentler is the Editorial Director at Base Design, leading global communications across the network’s studios. Her focus is on strengthening the Base brand – defining its values and point of view with an engaging tone. Spanning all six studios, she brings a transversal perspective that guides storytelling so the brand shows up with clarity and consistency worldwide.

Base Design was Started in the early ’90s and is an international network of creative studios in Brussels, New York, Geneva, and Melbourne, with a new studio in Saigon and a Digital studio that operates without a physical location. For more than three decades, they’ve built brands that are memorable, human-centric, and crafted for good business.

Rather than replicating the same model everywhere, each of their studios thrives on its local culture – while staying united by a shared mission: to help companies create brands with vision, clarity, and empathy.

In conversation, we hear how Julie and Aurélia are bringing a caring and inquisitive perspective to spaces like the design conferences out of the Base studios to spark important questions. We’re happy to share this episode with everyone and hope it scratches your brains a little to move with your hearts.

We R here 4 U. Thanks.

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