About

Hello, I’m Iancu, a graphic designer and illustrator based in London, UK. I’ve been designing and drawing for almost 20 years, my goals being to inform and delight people, and hopefully even inspire. Have a look around, and if you’d like to work together, please get in touch.

Approach

Inform – delight – inspire. These are the goals I keep in mind when working on a project. You can read more about it on my Approach page. 

In others' words

Kind words about me from a few great people:

He’s an unusual designer with an open mind and a bright brain.”
— Michael Wolff

I enjoyed meeting Iancu and talking about his great work when I met him in 2010, and we quickly started working together. I had no hesitation in asking him to join the ITV rebrand team and he has made an invaluable contribution to the project. Iancu draws on an incredible knowledge of design theory and practice and a great imagination to produce work which is appropriate, original and exciting. Always positive and calm, I cannot recommend him highly enough.”
— Matt Rudd (owner, Creative Director, Rudd Studio)

Iancu’s systematic approach to design brings simplicity and rigour to otherwise complex projects. His thinking and diligence are great additions to grown-up design teams and I hope we’ll work together again in the future.”
— Daniel Vasconcelos (Partner at Lippincott)

I worked with Iancu at a critical stage on a huge branding project for Puma & Arsenal FC in 2014, and found him to be a vital member of the team, diligently bringing an eye for detail and well written structure to help govern a global launch campaign for our client. He was a pleasure to deal with: fair, passionate, and extremely focused.”
— Mark Bonner (owner, Creative Director, GBH)

Experience

Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of working with many agencies, studios and companies from all over the world. A few of these are:

  • Appetite
  • Brand Union
  • Brandient
  • Bunch Design
  • Carl Nas Associates
  • Carré Noir
  • The Chase
  • Design Bridge
  • Fontsmith
  • GBH
  • Irving & Co
  • Jack Renwick Studio
  • JKR Global
  • Landor
  • Lippincott
  • Notable
  • Novagram
  • The Partners
  • PowellAllen
  • Radley Yeldar
  • Rapha
  • Rudd Studio
  • SomeOne
  • Takram
  • The Space Between
  • Studio/DDI
  • Styles+Partners
  • Superunion
  • True North
  • WeTransfer + WePresent
  • WMH&I

Short bio

My full name is Iancu Barbărasă and I was born in Transylvania, Romania. My surname literally means ‘shaved beard’, and it allegedly comes from a XVIII century state decree for local boyars to shave their Byzantine style beards for a more Western European look. I have Romanian, German and Slovakian roots, so any idea of nationalism seems misguided to me. It’s one of the many reasons for which I love living in London.

Oh, if you’re wondering, my website and studio name uses Iancul because that’s the medieval version of my name, borne by a famous Transylvanian king and an infamous Wallachian outlaw (also, iancu.com was already taken).

Interviews

Some of the interviews in which I’ve had the pleasure of sharing my experience:

Features

Many publications, books, events and exhibitions have kindly featured my work: