Heliana’s educational background is in social and graphic design. Heliana holds a PhD in Typography and Graphic Communication from the University of Reading, UK, and a master’s degree in Design from PUC-Rio, Brazil.
At Reading, she researched “typography in traditional poetry” observing the methods of segmentation in narrative poems and sonnets. Her MA research work focused on participatory co-design projects, a pioneering methodology called Social Design, which had been developed by PUC-Rio in the early 1980s.
Before teaching graphic design at Wrexham University, Heliana worked as an associate professor at the Federal University of Espírito Santo – UFES, Brazil. Heliana is Italian with a Greek name and a Portuguese surname who was born in Brazil and works in the UK. Thisshows how she sees herself in the world: ready to explore what is around her.
Heliana is keen on observing typography and letterings in buildings and she loves documenting the life and the British landscape through photography, painting and poetry.