CIVIC DESIGN
ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP
DESIGN FOR IMPACT
EQUITY
SOCIAL INNOVATION
URBAN ECOLOGIES
CIRCULAR THINKING
RECIPROCITY
ITERATIVE MAKING
DATA VISUALISATION
SONIC LANDSCAPES
ADAPTIVE ENVIRONMENTS
INTERDEPENDENCE
BRANDING
GRAPHIC DESIGN
ETHNOGRAPHY
CULTURAL INTEGRATION
LONGEVITY
CO-DESIGN
VERNACULAR MATERIALS
RITUALISATION
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
IDENTITY
SYSTEMS THINKING
STORYTELLING
MATERIAL CULTURE
LIVING HERITAGE
PARTICIPATORY DESIGN
I am a designer focused on people, culture, and the places that shape identity. Rooted in research and driven by lived experience, my practice sits at the intersection of communication design, sound, and systems thinking, using design as a tool for social connection and cultural celebration. I am drawn to the stories that communities carry and the spaces where those stories go unheard, and I believe design has a responsibility to amplify them. My work explores how design can exist in public space in a way that is ambient, accessible, and genuinely felt by the people who encounter it. I believe the most impactful design points are personal and nuanced, and they don’t ask you to seek them out.
My work explores how culture, heritage, and belonging can be woven into everyday experiences, making the invisible visible and the unheard audible. I see design not just as a means of communication, but as a form of activism: a way of building empathy, fostering integration, and creating a more generous understanding of what it means to share a place.
EM: biankamajer.design@outlook.com
WEB: https://biankamajerportfolio.cargo.site/
- Led by People: Every project begins with genuine listening. Before concepts, before aesthetics, before outcomes, understanding the lived experiences of the people the work is for. In future projects, this means prioritising research and conversation as the foundation of every brief, regardless of the subject matter
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Design as Activism:
Design is never neutral. It has the capacity to challenge, connect, and advocate for the people and communities that are often overlooked. In future projects, this means approaching every brief with a question: what is this work doing for the world beyond its immediate function?
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Culture and Identity as Creative Material:
Heritage, belonging, and lived experience are not just themes to explore — they are rich and generous creative territories that produce work with genuine depth and resonance. In future projects, this means seeking out the human stories embedded in every brief and finding ways to surface them through design.
- Open by Design The best design finds people where they already are. It doesn't ask communities to seek it out or translate themselves to understand it. In future projects, this means consistently designing for openness; work that is ambient, welcoming, and experienced rather than observed.
I believe good design should never require an invitation. Accessibility in my practice isn't an afterthought; it is a starting point. I design with the understanding that the most valuable work is the kind that people can encounter, understand, and connect with without needing any prior knowledge or context. This means thinking carefully about where design lives, how it communicates, and who it might be leaving behind. Whether working across physical, digital, or experiential outputs, I am committed to creating work that is open, legible, and genuinely welcoming to the widest possible audience.
Visual Identity & Communication Design
A strong ability to develop cohesive, concept-driven visual identities that communicate complex themes through considered use of typography, colour, and graphic language. Experienced in building brand systems that feel distinct, purposeful, and resolved across multiple touchpoints.
Research & Insight-Led Design
Skilled in applying a range of research methods, including interviews, case studies, and co-analysis sessions, to generate meaningful insights that directly inform and shape design outcomes. Able to translate complex human experiences into clear, considered design directions.
Systems Thinking & Campaign Design
Experienced in designing multi-stage campaign systems that operate across different contexts, audiences, and timeframes. Able to map complex moving parts into coherent, functional structures that serve both the immediate brief and longer-term impact.
A Glasgow-based communication designer with a deep passion for people, place, and culture. My practice sits at the intersection of visual identity, sound, and systems, driven by a genuine curiosity about human experience and using design as a tool for storytelling and social connection.
A short film exploring Glasgow's multicultural identity through the voices and sounds of its communities.
Common Threads is a live-streamed, evolving document of Glasgow’s multicultural identity. A city-wide sonic campaign working towards more integrated and empathetic cultural relationships, it places site-specific listening posts across Glasgow’s neighbourhoods, where soundscapes representing each local area’s culture play on a rotating schedule throughout the year. Common Threads was born from a belief that the immigrant experience should not be carried quietly or apologised for. It should be celebrated, shared, and woven into the fabric of the places we call home.
These soundscapes are built from field recordings, community contributions, and live sonic capture, and they constantly evolve with the communities they represent. Archiving within an institution builds over time into an ongoing sonic history of Glasgow’s cultural landscape. The campaign runs year-round, moving through stages of community engagement, feeding back into the next in an expanding spiral of impact. Outcomes include three original soundscapes, a campaign guide, a visual identity system, a public submission archive, a short film, and legacy artefacts that communicate the campaign’s future potential.
Common Threads questions who gets to be heard in public space, whose culture is considered part of a city’s identity, and what it truly means to belong. It seeks meaningful disruption through sound and genuine connection through shared experience.
Common Threads is a live-streamed, evolving document of Glasgow’s multicultural identity. A city-wide sonic campaign working towards more integrated and empathetic cultural relationships, it places site-specific listening posts across Glasgow’s neighbourhoods, where soundscapes representing each local area’s culture play on a rotating schedule throughout the year. Common Threads was born from a belief that the immigrant experience should not be carried quietly or apologised for. It should be celebrated, shared, and woven into the fabric of the places we call home.
These soundscapes are built from field recordings, community contributions, and live sonic capture, and they constantly evolve with the communities they represent. Archiving within an institution builds over time into an ongoing sonic history of Glasgow’s cultural landscape. The campaign runs year-round, moving through stages of community engagement, feeding back into the next in an expanding spiral of impact. Outcomes include three original soundscapes, a campaign guide, a visual identity system, a public submission archive, a short film, and legacy artefacts that communicate the campaign’s future potential.
Common Threads questions who gets to be heard in public space, whose culture is `considered part of a city’s identity, and what it truly means to belong. It seeks meaningful disruption through sound and genuine connection through shared experiences.
In response to the growing datafication of health, The Symbiotica Initiative is a solution to bespoke personal health. It is a social housing outreach community group and service that specialises in recalibrating data to determine the level of symbiosis within a space and in forming a curatorial plan specific to the needs of its human and non-human residents. By utilising sonic analysis, sonic data is used to promote reciprocity between species.
The Symbiotica Initiative’s goal is to support harmonious living between human and nonhuman tenants and to achieve equitable, mutualistic environments within social housing to encourage reciprocal micro-ecosystems. It acts as an application to bespoke personal health through a designed service system and data calibration model, outputted through sonic habitat interpretations.