I'm a designer, hacker and lecturer. This is my personal space on the Internet, and I'm in the process of moving my old things here.
Things I do
- I'm teaching design for the web and interfaces at the Design Department of ESAP.
- I'm one of the founders of the Porto chapter of Journalism++, the network of data-driven storytelling agencies. There, I carry out the role of lead editor and data architect.
- I run the Manufactura Independente design studio along with Ana Isabel Carvalho.
- I help manage and facilitate the activities of Portugal's open data collective, Transparência Hackday Portugal.
- I get a kick out of writing code to make computers do what I want them to do, and most often Python is my language of choice. In the last decade I wrote a tool for drawing with code, a small toolchain for working with fonts, a data portal an old-school ASCII art image renderer and a good amount of public information scrapers. Most of the code I wrote can be found at my GitLab page.
- I'm an advocate for copyleft culture, libre design and open data, and spent the better part of the last decade incorporating those principles into my practice. I use free software for all my design and code work.
Things I did
- I was one of the co-editors and designers of Libre Graphics magazine, a publication dedicated to the intersections between free culture and design published between 2010 and 2016.
- I was a lecturer at the Design department of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto between 2010 and 2014, having planned and taught courses on hardware hacking for artists, introduction to digital tools, intermediate web design, intellectual property and Python coding for designers.
- I helped run Hacklaviva, Porto's first hackerspace.
- I developed Lightwriter, a media art piece which was showcased in several places in Europe. I'm redocumenting that work at the moment.
- I've spoken regularly at events related to open data, communication design, typography and free culture.
Elsewhere
- I publish my code on GitLab and tweet as @rlaf. These days I prefer Mastodon, and you'll find my toots at post.lurk.org/rlafuente
- IRC was very close to me as I grew up, and the late evenings at PTnet are a fond memory. I now lurk as luluganeta on Freenode.
- My e-mail address is ricardo at manufacturaindependente dot org. I have others, but they all end up in the same place.