Symbola is a UK-based creative studio co-founded by Dr Ernesto Priego and Francisco de la Mora. The studio specialises in the use of comics, illustration, infographics, animation, and participatory storytelling as tools for communication, research engagement and social impact. Working at the intersection of comics, health, disability, education and public engagement, Symbola develops projects that adapt and translate complex experiences and research into accessible visual and multimedia narratives.
The studio has collaborated with researchers, universities, edtech startups, publishers, charities and cultural organisations in the UK and internationally, producing graphic novels, educational resources, workshops and co-designed creative projects. Symbola’s approach combines comics practice, graphic medicine, participatory design and lived-experience methodologies to support inclusive communication, knowledge exchange and public engagement.
Symbola brings expertise in comics creation, participatory design, graphic medicine, co-design research and public engagement. The studio has extensive experience working with lived-experience communities to create visual narratives that support representation, dialogue and understanding across health, disability, education and social care contexts.
Dr Ernesto Priego is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design and co-director of the Data, Policy and Society MSc at City St George’s, University of London. He is the founder and editor of The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship and an internationally recognised researcher exploring comics as narrative, conceptual and speculative design tools. His work applies user-centred and participatory co-design methods to the creation of comics in public health and social interest contexts. Ernesto led the AHRC-funded Parables of Care: Responses to Dementia Care (2017–2021), which explored the use of comics to increase the impact and accessibility of dementia care research.
Francisco de la Mora is an illustrator, comics writer and educator whose work has focused on visual storytelling, social issues and graphic medicine. His graphic biographies of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, published by SelfMadeHero, have received international recognition, and he has illustrated for The Hackney Citizen since 2018. Through Symbola Comics he has developed projects exploring disability, care, inclusion and community participation, informed in part by his experience as the father of a child with Periventricular Leukomalacia (PVL).