Today in La Lonja we sat down with Granada Barrero, our mentor in industrial design, to get to know her a little better.
The long career of Granada makes her, undoubtedly, an essential figure in La Lonja team. Our mentor studied Industrial Design Engineering and she has been president of the Andalusian Association of Designers, which is one of the biggest milestones of her career. Granada began to gain visibility thanks to a blog she created a few years ago, deidigital.com, since then her work has been published in numerous media and recognized with many awards, such as the Premio Andaluz de Diseño of 2016 or the Premio Arca Oro 2020 for best beverage packaging, among many others.
As if that were not enough, Granada also participates as a jury member in various design awards, she is a teacher, and has collaborated as a consultant on trends for different projects and companies, and, finally, she is a writer, participating with various magazines and writing books such as Gastrotendencias 2: alimentación, turismo y diseño en la era de los millennials, which she co-authored.
Huelva and entrepreneurship
Our mentor began to enter the entrepreneurship world during her university days, when, with some colleagues, she founded the magazine dedigital.com, which, little by little, earned the respect of the sector. But there came a moment when Granada wanted to go further, she wanted to touch the reality of the business world and contribute from there through strategic design. So, over 10 years ago, she created her own studio, where she is constantly close to entrepreneurship, as the majority of the companies she works with are led by entrepreneurs.
Granada’s opinion is clear: “the geographical location doesn't determine the abilities or talent of potential entrepreneurs”. This is something that must be made clear in Huelva, since, as our mentor affirms, if there is a good entrepreneurial ecosystem where you can find support and there are people with the willingness to work, geographical limitations have no sense. Therefore, she encourages anyone who is thinking about starting a startup to take the leap, as it is possible from Huelva.
Furthermore, she highlights La Lonja de la Innovación’s work in encouraging entrepreneurs to submit their project to the calls, as she claims that startups can find diverse guidance and a knowledgeable panel of professionals there, which allows entrepreneurs to feel a competitive advantage over the rest. In addition to all this is added the opportunity to join an ecosystem with peers that are in a similar stage in their business journey.
Her help to entrepreneurs
Perseverance and self-criticism are the two pieces of advice Granada offers to every entrepreneur. “It is not a linear path, but a cycle”, this is how she defines the adventure of entrepreneurship to all startups, to whom she is committed to help from La Lonja. Having worked with companies of different sectors and scales, our mentor can offer a holistic view of design, empathize with startups, and draw from past experiences across multiple industries. In short, thanks to her experience, Granada offers as a mentor “a compass of the steps to follow for the achievement of the objectives”.
Finally, our design mentor has a last recommendation to learn even in our free time: Como nacen los objetos a book by Bruno Munari that talks about problem analysis and solution-seeking. We'll write it down!
It has been a pleasure to chat today with Granada Barrero, digital design mentor at La Lonja de la Innovación, where, along with the rest of the mentors of our professional team, she offers her experience as lessons to make startups grow.
Write us at info@lalonja.tech if you want to know more about our programs and services, we are waiting for you!