Bea Garcia Uses Giotto-Inspired Colour and Mixed Media to Tell Brand Stories

For illustrator Bea Garcia, a brand’s visual identity can do more than make it recognizable. It can give customers a way into its history. Her work brings together a Mediterranean-influenced palette, strong straight lines and mixed media to create images she describes as bold, modern and classy. In an interview presented by the Directory of Illustration, Garcia explains how those choices can help a brand feel distinctive and build a closer connection with its audience.

Garcia is based in Amsterdam and originally comes from the Rock of Gibraltar. She is drawn to history, heritage and the stories behind brands. That interest shapes her view of illustration as a tool for making a company’s past and character more visible, rather than simply adding decoration to a product or identity.

Colour with roots in art history

Garcia traces her palette to the work of fourteenth-century Italian painter Giotto. She combines that historical reference with direct, linear forms, creating a tension between a palette she sees as sophisticated and compositions with a distinctly modern edge. The result, in her description, is an unapologetic style designed to hold the viewer’s attention.

That mix offers a useful way to think about visual identity: a reference can lend work depth, while the treatment keeps it from feeling like a period piece. Garcia’s approach doesn’t ask a brand to choose between heritage and contemporary clarity. Colour can carry a sense of age and continuity; strong lines can give the image structure and immediacy.

Ancient Greece

Mixed media

A palette that sets a tone

Garcia sees colour as part of the relationship a customer forms with a brand. She describes brand relationships as grounded in trust, and argues that colour choices can support that feeling or work against it. Her own Mediterranean palette, she says, suggests warmth and longevity—qualities she considers relevant when a customer is deciding whether to buy online.

For a design team, the practical point is that palette decisions communicate before a viewer has read a brand story or examined a product in detail. Garcia’s comments don’t prescribe a universal set of colours for trust. Instead, they suggest a more useful question for a brief: what qualities should the palette evoke, and how do those qualities connect to the brand’s character and history?

Porto, Sao Bento

Mixed media

Illustration as a record of the brand

Garcia describes brands as modern-day fairytales: they can attach hopes and aspirations to everyday objects, from a new phone to a piece of jewellery someone has been saving for. Her interest lies in documenting the journey behind a brand and using that history to help customers feel closer to it. When people learn about the past of a brand they already like, she suggests, they can feel included in its continuing story.

This framing gives illustration a clear role in identity work. An image can make history easier to encounter, turning details about a brand’s beginnings or development into a visual experience. Garcia sees herself as documenting that journey and making it better known. For teams, that points toward a concrete starting place: identify the parts of a brand’s history that matter to its audience, then consider how imagery can make those details memorable.

Kitchen

Mixed Media

Distinctiveness and staying power

Garcia also makes a practical case for artwork in branding: it can help a company stand apart from competitors, and she considers it more cost effective than a traditional photoshoot with models. She argues that illustration can have a longer shelf life, gaining an iconic quality over time instead of quickly looking out of date.

That longevity depends on the work’s connection to the brand. A distinctive image is more likely to keep its meaning when its visual choices express something specific about the company, rather than follow a passing style. Garcia’s emphasis on history, palette and visual character offers one route to that specificity. The work can feel contemporary while still drawing on references that give it depth.

Hanoi

Mixed Media

Where to find Garcia’s work

Garcia says interested clients can contact her through the form on her website or reach her on Instagram. Her Directory of Illustration portfolio and website provide starting points for exploring her work. The interview offers a concise view of her practice: art-historical colour, firm linear structure and a focus on the stories that make a brand feel like itself.

Beatrice Garcia

See Garcia’s portfolio and website, or follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.