Designers Mariana Pellegrino Soto

Mariana Pellegrino Soto was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. She studied at the Agostino Codazzi Italian high school, obtaining a scientific diploma.

At 18, she moved to Italy to study Product Design at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Rome. During her three-year degree, she participated in the Erasmus programme, studying for one semester at the Institute's Barcelona headquarters.

She participated in and won an internal competition at the university for the design of an "Aqua Santa Maria" glass water bottle (for the Şayaçhi Group of Companies), and also won the Best Packaging Award at the 2016 Global Bottled Water Awards.

During her final year at university, she completed a thesis project in collaboration with the Oluce company, who, on selecting her project, went on to develop her product in its final form. After working as a design developer at F&N Compositi, she moved to Milan to begin a one-year collaboration at Oluce as an internal designer. From this collaboration, a new family of lamps was born, and the existing Alba family was extended. 

Mariana currently works as a freelance interior and product designer