João Ornelas is an award-winning designer, specialised in bespoke designs for luxury automobiles and sportscars.
With a BFA degree in Drawing from ESAP (Portugal), and a BSc degree in Transportation Design from Art Center College of Design Europe (Switzerland), João Ornelas started his automotive design career at Renault where, at the Advanced Design studio, he designed the 1997 Renault Pangea concept-car.
Dissatisfied with the declining interest in style and design refinement within the mainstream automotive industry, he moved to brand design and advertising to explore different areas of design, joining the leading Portuguese design firm - Novodesign - to learn the basics of brand building, and unique product experiences. At the same time, he started consulting for motorcycle manufacturers.
Invited to join a small design studio which he built into a leading and award-winning design company - Grandesign - he was able to design a wide range of vehicles and products, from motorcycles and buses to race cars, medical devices, bank automation and robotics, consumer products, street lighting, industrial machines and garden tools.
As managing director, he designed more than 200 products, vehicles and solutions which are produced and sold worldwide by national and international brands as BBS, BexenCardio, Biosystems, Black & Decker, B´Twin, Daihatsu, Decathlon, Fagor, Fiat, Glory Global Solutions, Hyundai, Lambretta, MH Motorcycles, MINI, Philips, Polisport, Schréder, Simoldes, Skoda, Swatch and VW. Continuing to expand his consulting business to automotive and motorcycle manufacturers, he also designed and built the JH12, the first 100% Portuguese off-road racing car.
To pursue his passion for drawing and building exciting designs by carefully expressing the quality of each line into remarkable shapes, and due to the growing demand for his extensive knowledge and experience, since 2016 João Ornelas decided to focus exclusively on design consultancy, combining his design skills with extensive product development, engineering, prototyping and manufacturing expertise to create bold and refined designs for luxury automobiles.
Winner of numerous national and international design awards - including 3 Red Dot Design Awards, 1 Good Design Award, 1 iF Design Award, 1 DME Award, 1 Gold Award / Merchandising Design, and several 1st prizes in international design competitions - João Ornelas is ambassador of the Art Center College of Design in Portugal, and is regularly invited for lectures, workshops and master classes at national and international design schools.
