For many years, Alberto Herrero’s creative identity revolved around letters. Starting with graffiti at the age of thirteen and later working for almost a decade in advertising, lettering became both a visual language and a professional path. It felt familiar and natural, a continuation of the marks he had been making since his teenage years. Over time, however, that identity began to feel restrictive.
Herrero reached a point where the work, the expectations and even the label he had built around himself as “the letters guy” started to close in. In response, he stepped away from the pace of commercial practice and returned to something much quieter. During that pause he picked up watercolours for the first time since childhood.
The resulting series, Navigating Change, is a collection of intuitive watercolour studies created between 2025 and 2026. Unlike his previous work, these pieces were not planned, sketched or corrected. They emerged slowly and instinctively, guided more by emotion than by technique.
“I didn’t plan these pieces,” Herrero explains. “I just stayed still long enough to listen.”
The works function less as finished statements and more as signals within an ongoing personal process. Painted during a period of transition, each image reflects moments of uncertainty, change and self-reflection.
Themes of transformation run quietly through the series. A snake shedding its skin, drifting balloons and other symbolic forms appear throughout the paintings, suggesting the tension between who we think we are and who we may be becoming.
“These watercolours are not answers,” Herrero says. “They are signals.”
By allowing intuition to guide the process, the work becomes a mirror for internal change. The softness of watercolour reinforces this approach, allowing forms to emerge gradually and unpredictably across the paper.
For Herrero, the shift represents a different way of working. One that values slowness, attention and emotional honesty over certainty or control.
Alberto Herrero is a visual author and creative director based in Spain. With a background in graffiti, lettering and advertising, his practice moves across illustration, motion and visual identity. His recent work focuses on more personal and intuitive approaches to drawing, exploring themes of identity, transformation and emotional truth.
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