Brazilian designers Leo Porto and Felipe Rocha combine their practices to form PORTO ROCHA

Brazilian designers Leo Porto and Felipe Rocha are longtime collaborators in both work and life, but it’s taken until 2020 for them to merge their practices as PORTO ROCHA officially. They’d worked together since 2016, which Rocha tells us “started casually when I was approached to work on a freelance project and asked Leo to help me out.” He adds that they “noticed from this first work experience that it was possible to be in a relationship and work together without losing our minds.” From then on, they only took on projects as a duo, working around their respective day jobs at COLLINS and Spotify. “Eventually it got to a point where the projects were getting bigger and more complex, so we had to start turning them down. That’s when we realised the timing was right. It was the combination of both demand and our desire to start our own venture independently that made us confident to take the next step and open our studio”, explains Rocha. The studio, which is based in Brooklyn, New York, builds on Porto and Rocha’s status as immigrants with the founding idea that global perspectives are vital to developing relevant brands. They strive to create work that inspires and provokes meaningful changes, whether it be through large-scale projects that reach significant audiences or through culturally-motivated initiatives.