The beauty of art lies in the creativity and freedom it provides us to turn a blank canvas into a hopeful and artistic message.  

In Southwest Europe, Rita Santos works as a graphic designer for a retail store in Portugal called FNAC, where she has honed and developed her skills and made her appreciation towards graphic design expand.  

Santos was introduced to Photoshop via Tumblr when she was 13 years old.  

“I saw a lot of people just doing graphic designs for movies that I like, for example, Marvel and The Hunger Games. So I thought I should try and join and do my thing as well,” she said.  

When she was 21, she joined a graphic design course, where she learned the professional and personal side of designing. She worked with a variety of different styles of design, among them posters. Santos additionally takes inspiration from art, such as paintings you find at museums, but she has also been influenced by the work of Marvel and DC Comics.

Santos explains her style: “Mainly colorful. I like to play with colors a lot and bold typography. For the main parts of my designs, I use photos that have an impact either emotionally or visually—something that is beautiful.” 

Santos is bilingual, as she speaks both in English and Portuguese, which allows her to approach her work differently. She uses graphic design as a way to train herself with the English language. 

Through her designs, it is important for Santos that her art showcases topics about mental health, feelings, and emotions as she would like for other people to relate and see themselves in her art and enjoy it, like she did.  

One case this is present is with her poster for the new Superman movie. The design features Superman in the air, surrounded by the positive and hopeful message he said in the movie: “I love. I get scared. I wake up every moving and despite not knowing what to do. I put one foot in front of the other, and I try to make the best choices I can. But that is being human. And that is my biggest strength.”

Santos has balanced her work and personal designs by implementing and following the rules that her job give her.  

“Personally, I enjoy the movies and books, and with the company [I work for], I have to follow rules. There are a lot of things we can’t do. We can’t use certain colors. We always use the same fonts,” she said.  

Santos incorporates trends in her designs, like cursive type bold fonts. She enjoys using this as it’s unique and not something she learned in her graphic design course. She has also begun to do motion graphics by creating posters with GIFs.  

In her line of work, sometimes challenges or creative blocks arise. But through her job and personal designs, she has learned how important it is to be confident of your work.

“I wasn’t able to create anything last year,” she began. “I didn’t post anything because I was deep in my job for the company. But recently I’ve posted more, and it’s built my confidence.” Engaging with people in the comments has also helped her confidence. “Having people comment and saying they like my things also has been a great way for me to build confidence because I don’t have a way to get feedback.”

Santos carefully chooses which design to share on social media, as she doesn’t want it to be just one of the many designs on the platform. To achieve this, she uses new techniques and builds off her designs she used to do in the past. She experiments with textures, gradient maps, and colors.  

One of her proudest moments as a designer is when DC Comics commented on her Superman design on TikTok.  

“I did not expect it. I was in Madrid in line for a concert, and then I received the notification. It’s a dream for me to have recognition from the things I love so much. It makes me really proud and give me motivation to do more,” she said. 

Images taken from behance.ritagraphicss.com | Interviewed on July 29, 2025