Lara Mendonça

Lara Mendonça

Design Director @Tumblr in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, She/her

About

Lara Mendonça is a designer, amateur philosopher and professional fangirl.

With a career of 12 years, her experience ranges from product, interaction and brand identity to print, motion design, advertising and illustration.

She has previously worked at Twitter, Bumble, Wise, HSBC, Mitsubishi, Sky & Globosat. She also co-founded Mischief Studio.

She holds a Master of Arts from the London College of Communication of the University of the Arts London — with Honors.

These days, she's a Design Director at Tumblr, part of Automattic. She lives in Rio de Janeiro.

Teams

Past
automattic.design

Work Experience

2022 — Now
Remote

She works with executive leadership to bring Tumblr's strategy to life. She focuses on leading and scaling the team while fostering a healthy culture, elevating design's influence, building a long-term vision and improving design operations.

2021 — 2022
Remote

She led design teams working on profiles and conversations on the platform, working to improve user safety and self-expression. Notable projects include Twitter Circles, improved reply controls, tweet downvoting and new verification flows.

2019 — 2021
London, UK

She established and led a diverse and high-performing team of user researchers, product and content designers—scaling from 1 to 15 members. During her tenure, design became an efficient strategic partner, culminating on a redesign of the product and “contributing to a wildly successful IPO” (Fast Company).

Education

2021 — 2022
Master of Arts at University of the Arts London
London, UK
2009 — 2014
Bachelor of Arts (Incomplete) at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Contact

Tumblr
Twitter
LinkedIn
Instagram

Speaking

2021
On Design Portfolios at Working Not Working
2021
Design for Belonging at Canvas
2020
Design for Belonging at UXDX Barcelona
2020
Design for Belonging at JAM Online
2020
Design for Belonging at Triangirls Talks
2020
Design for Belonging at Remote Design Week
2019
AMA Session at General Assembly
London, UK
2021
Pride Stars from AdWeek

Volunteering

2020 — 2021
Design Mentor at adplist.org

Amazing Design People List (adplist.org) is a community-initiated talent base helping designers land new jobs and connect to design mentors globally. For designers, by designers. Supported by Invision.

2018 — 2019
London, UK

I volunteered at Pride in London, leading the redesign of their website alongside a team of enthusiastic designers and developers.