Marina Willer – Pentagram

Marina Willer is a graphic designer and film-maker with an MA in Graphic Design from the Royal College of Art. Before joining Pentagram as a partner, she was head creative director for Wolff Olins in London.

During the course of her career, Willer has led the design of major identities schemes for Amnesty International, Tate, Southbank Centre, Serpentine Galleries, Oxfam, Nesta, Second Home, Sam Labs, and the largest telecoms in Russia (Beeline) and Brazil (Oi), among many others. She was also one of the designers behind the brand for Macmillan Cancer support.

Willer’s first feature film, Red Trees, premiered at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and was released worldwide by Netflix in 2018. Her films have been shown at Fondation Cartier in Paris, the ICA in London and prestigious film festivals worldwide. In 2008, she made “Exposed”, a film to introduce the exhibition of Richard Rogers at the Pompidou Centre and the Design Museum. The film was the result of a longstanding collaboration with Rogers and his architectural practice RSH+P, for which Willer created the visual identity.

A multi-faceted designer, Willer has recently turned her hand to exhibition design, where she has completed work on major exhibitions for the Barbican (‘Mangasia: Wonderlands of Asian Comics’) and the Design Museum (‘Ferrari: Under the Skin’).

She has been an examiner at the Royal College of Art and is a member of the AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale) the most prestigious graphic design association in the world. She has been a member of the D&AD jury on numerous occasions.

During the course of her career Willer has been the recipient of a variety of industry honours and she is consistently recognised as a leading figure in UK design, including: Creative Review’s Creative Leaders 2017, Design Week’s People Who Made an Impact on Design 2017 and The Dots’ Female Creative Leaders 2017.

 

Awards include best Brazilian short film at the São Paulo Film Festival, 2004, Best British Promotional Film at Promex 2000, Grand Prix for Oi at the 2002 Design Effectiveness Awards and Gold for Macmillan 2007. Her Serpentine Galleries identity was among the 2014 nominees for the Design Museum’s ‘Beazley Designs of the Year.