Estúdio Lógos

brasil+ was the project for an unpublished guide book created for the publishing house romano guerra. the plan was for a series of 12 guides to different brazilian cities, covering four areas: architecture, design, fashion and gastronomy.

on one hand, we had to resolve all the typical problems that go with a (bilingual) guide book, providing the reader with a quick-reference format and clear reading, etc., and all in an a6 pocketbook format (105 x 148 mm).

on the other hand, the main question that arose was how to speak about brazil graphically. 

 

the core reference for the graphic design and the name of the series was the pilot plan in brasília, understood as an interpretation of brazil by modern architecture.

the editor abílio guerra reminded us of lucio costa’s words, when he said that brasília ‘was born from the first of all gestures when indicating or taking possession of a place: two lines intersecting at right angles, in other words, a cross’.

at the same time, we took as a graphic reference the tropicalist design of rogério duarte, with his vibrant colors and overlappings.

here, a photograph showing the axis on which brasília rests and the poster for the film ‘god and the devil in the land of the sun’.

 

the open cover, with spine, back cover and flaps. the ‘+’ in the title and the cross as image were used to organize the guide’s four themes visually across the cover.

each theme was identified with a color. of the cymk colors, the black is neutral, while the cyan and magenta identify two themes, and the yellow the remaining two, superposed on the cyan and magenta.

the yellow also draws attention to the printing process: it is a single plane on the cover, slightly mismatched with the cyan and magenta rectangles, which makes it possible to identify each color.

in the heading, we used two axes: the portuguese title on the horizontal and the english on the vertical. 

 

one of the functional problems to be resolved was how to cross-reference organization per theme and per neighborhood.

the book was arranged into chapters per neighborhood, with colors helping to identify the themes at a glance.

after a brief presentation on the city and a map of its regions, each guide was to have a complete contents list, as shown here.

each neighborhood configured a column, with the guide entries grouped by theme, following the structure established on the cover.

 

each neighborhood chapter has an opening spread with an introduction text. this spread had a black bled background – making it easy to quickly find each neighborhood in the book.

the following spread (shown here) had a neighborhood map. as you can see on the lefthand page, we included some extra places, out of their themes.

theses where tips found at the end of some items, secondary places which the guide mentioned without giving much info.

 

lastly, a typical page devoted to an item, in this case the oca museum in ibirapuera.

the first column of text was to contain basic information—address, site, telephone numbers, opening hours etc., followed by a brief description in portuguese and english.

 

the 12 guides were to be sold separately or as a box-set.

here is a photo of a model of the box.