Gabriela Sá

Gabriela Sá is a 2D digital artist, teacher and researcher, interested in visual development and storytelling for animation and video games.

She is currently enrolled in the PhD in Design at FBAUP, with an FCT scholarship, developing research on the subject of female representation in popular animated feature films of the 21st century.

 

Previously

Researcher and game artist in Mobeybou - FCT funded project | CIEC, UMinho - creation of visual assets for the Mobeybou game and mobile apps, + development, testing and implementation of UX/UI and gameplay design.

 

Teaches

Visual Development for Video Games | MA in Engineering of Digital Games Development, EST - IPCA

Character Design | MA in Illustration and Animation, ESD - IPCA

Previously taught Visual Storytelling and Figure Drawing | BA in Moving Image, ESEC - UALG

 

Studied

MA in Illustration and Animation | 2018 | ESD - IPCA (Barcelos, Portugal) | Representações de género no cinema de animação mainstream dos últimos 25 anos - Desenvolvimento de representações não estereotipadas do género feminino

BA in Fine Arts - Multimedia | 2015 | FBAUP (Porto, Portugal)

Erasmus Exchange | Animation | 2014 | KASK (Gent, Belgium)

Current positions

  • Teacher IPCA

Research Groups

Publications

Books
  • Moreno, A., Chatterjee, A., Herbawi, B., Vieira-da-Silva, D., Luna, F., Sá, G., Alvelos, H., Mendes, M., Néo, M.B., Zanini, M.R., Mourão, S., Meira, S. (2023) “Poster of a Doctorate. PhD Design 2016-2023+”. Porto, Portugal: ID+Instituição de Investigação em Design, Media e Cultura. Link
International conferences
  • Caruso, Ana Paula; Tavares, Paula; Caruso, Ana Paula; Sylla, Cristina; Sá, Gabriela. “Animating for a Digital Manipulative: how to create restricted action libraries without restricting the areas”. Trabalho apresentado em CONFIA – 7th International Conference in Illustration and Animation, Viana do Castelo, 2019
  • Sá, G., Tavares, P. & Alvelos, H. (2023). Domee Shi’s Turning Red as Feminist Hope for Feature Animation. Tercer Congreso Creadoras: Dibujo, Diseño y Acción, Seville, Spain.
  • Sá, G., Tavares, P., Alvelos, H. “Where are the women? An overview of female representation in popilar contemporary animation feature films.”. Trabalho apresentado em CONFIA 10th International Conference in Illustration and Animation, Caldas da Rainha, Portugal, 2023 Link
  • Sá, G., Tavares, P. & Alvelos, H. (2023). Where are the Women? An Overview of Female Representation in Popular Contemporary Animation Feature Films. In CONFIA – 10th International Conference on Illustration and Animation.
  • Sylla, C., Pereira, I. & Sá, G. (2019). Designing Manipulative Tools for Creative Multi and Cross-Cultural Storytelling. In ACM Creativity and Cognition, San Diego. Link
  • Sá, G., Menegazzi, D., Sylla, C. & Caruso, A. (2019). Visual Development Processes for a Multicultural Storytelling Tool. In Confia – International Conference on Illustration and Animation, Viana do Castelo. Link
  • Sá, G. & Tavares, P. (2019). Color Differences in Male and Female Protagonists of Mainstream Animation Film. In Confia – 7th International Conference on Illustration and Animation, Viana do Castelo, Portugal.
  • Sá, G., Sylla, C., Menegazzi, D. & Caruso, A. (2019). Multiculturalism and Creativity in Storytelling – Visual Development of a Digital Manipulative for Children. In Creativity & Cognition, San Diego, USA. Link
  • Sylla, C., Sá, G., Martins, V., Caruso, A., Amaro, B., Menegazzi, D., Sylla, F. (2019). Designing Narrative Learning in the Digital Era. In ACM International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – CHI19, Glasgow. Link
  • Sá, G. & Tavares, P. (2018). Desperfeitamente – an activity book for inducing creativity in female character design. In CONFIA – 6th International Conference on Illustration and Animation (pp. 80-88). Norprint. Link
  • Sá, G. & Tavares, P. (2017). Female Character Design in Today’s Cartoons: The typical and the alternative “girl squad”. In CONFIA – 5th International Conference on Illustration and Animation (pp. 346-355). Link
  • Sá, G. & Tavares, P. (2017). Representação feminina no cinema de animação mainstream dos últimos 25 anos. In AVANCA International Conference Cinema – Art, Technology, Communication (pp. 606-612). Link
See all 12 international conferences

Scientific, artistic and cultural production

Scientific events organization
  • Moreno, A., Herbawi, B., Vieira-da-Silva, D., Luna, F., Sá, G., Alvelos, H., Mendes, M., Néo, M.B., Zanini, M.R., Meira, S. (2023) Comissão de organização da UD23, encontro de estudantes de doutoramento em Design, intitulado de “Actions and Reflections on Design Research”.