A daisy caught in soft golden sunlight

About

On paper, it looks like separate paths. But it has always been one practice in different rooms.

I've always been interested in what's beneath the surface. I want to understand what people are really trying to say, and what gives an idea its particular character.

Literature and writing gave me one way to explore that. Brand strategy and creative direction gave me another. Making work outside a brief keeps me close to perspective, judgment, and a reason to make something in the first place.

Lilian Santini seated with an open book

where it started

I grew up in the countryside of Brazil with wide spaces and little to do, which means I spent my childhood watching people and reading between the lines. Journaling has been a lifelong constant; I kept diaries less to record events than to catch what was moving beneath the surface. My diary from 1998 later became From the Beginning. The habit of paying attention is the foundation of everything I do.

the words

When it was time for university, I went to the same Brazilian campus where my parents were students, to focus on language and literature. Poetry and I found each other there, and then I left it behind for years, buried under brand work. It returned during a difficult season, when writing became the only way through. Behold: Life Beyond Grief came out of that return.

the work

After coming to the U.S. as an au pair, I spent more than ten years in New York corporate offices before moving to Miami and starting The Copper Portico. Literature taught me how to listen; branding gave me a place to practice it.

The clearest example I can give you is Vizcaya, a historic estate I've worked with since 2020. There, the work is so much more than maintaining a brand. It is about understanding what makes the place distinct, deciding what needs to evolve, and helping it change without losing its spirit.

what i do now

Lately my attention has turned to the questions technology is raising about how we create and what we leave behind. In my Futures Lab, I build small prototypes of questions that haven't fully arrived yet.

I'm looking to join a team doing that kind of work, in a special projects or strategy role at an organization thinking seriously about technology and people.

I also keep a little room for working sessions with founders and creators who are too close to their own work, to help them see what has changed.

Your perspective is the only thing that cannot be automated.

If your team is working on what comes next, I'd love to hear about it.