COVID BLUES

João Bettencourt Bacelar began drawing very early on surfboards and bodyboard. He studied design at IADE. Soon the illustration and photography for publicity and fashion took him to Novo Design (Brandia), having set up an atelier with Ricardo Mealha in 1995. He worked in the 90's for Young & Rubicam. Started working in W/Portugal, followed by BMZ / PARK, BBDO, Saatchi and Ogilvy & Matter. It was also during this decade that he started to collect more than 20 awards for creativity and communication (several European Regional Design Awards, Prisma Awards, Eurobest, FIAP, Cannes Festival, Clio Awards, Cresta Awards, The New York Festivals, EMEA, Daily Trophy of News) with works he has done for institutions such as Portugal Telecom, Sonae, Nissan, Ford, ICEP, Cais Magazine, Amnesty International, Union of Journalists, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

He illustrated the children's book "101 Things and Socks to Do Before Growing Up", and in 2011, his "Water Closet" photo book at Estoril's Fashion Week (2009) was launched at Moda Lisboa. He was responsible for numerous productions for the magazine DIF Magazine (16 issues of this monthly magazine had the cover with his signature, during the almost 9 years of existence), or the magazine Umbigo, in addition to other publications such as Neo2, Diário de Notícias, Cosmopolitan-Portugal, and Tabu Magazine of Jornal Sol. João Bacelar has extensive video work for RTP1, RTP2, SIC. It was the only Portuguese to be selected for "Life in a Day", produced by Ridley Scott.
Was in 2019 winner of the Absolute Creative Competition in Portugal.