IED Studio Visit | Gil Tokio: Character Design - Brazilian Identity & Japanese Intersections
Date
18 May 2026
Time
09:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Fruition
In-person event
On May 18, 2026, IED Milano welcomes Gil Tokio, illustrator, designer, musician and professor from IED São Paulo, for a lecture and workshop dedicated to Character Design for illustration and animation.
Titled “Character Design - Brazilian Identity & Japanese Intersections”, the session explores the contemporary Brazilian creative scene through design processes, visual languages and cultural references. At the heart of the activity is the dialogue between Brazilian Ginga, understood as movement, energy and creative improvisation, and key principles of Japanese aesthetics such as Wabi-sabi, Kintsugi and Ikigai.
During the morning session, Gil Tokio will present his professional journey in illustration and introduce students to the Brazilian illustration and animation market, with a focus on the role of cultural identity in design. The lecture will be followed by a hands-on workshop in which students will develop characters through form studies, silhouette, body structure, negative space, model sheets, turn-arounds and line-ups, with references to techniques inspired by mangaka Akira Toriyama.
Gil Tokio is co-founder of Estúdio Pingado and has worked for over 25 years with leading publishers, newspapers and companies in advertising, animation and gaming in Brazil. His work has received awards such as the HQMix Trophy and the Fórum Fashion Revolution Award. Since 2011, he has been teaching at IED São Paulo and also collaborates with Quanta Academia de Artes. Alongside his visual practice, he is a musician with the band Laikabot and the taiko group SKTG.
