Book’s graphic project - Creation, conceptualization and execution of the entire project, including the diagramming of the entire book, illustration, cover and graphic accompaniment of the printing process.

 

Publication that groups the articles of the President of the National Confederation of Commerce (CNC)¹, Antonio Oliveira Santos, during the year 2016. This project has been prior to the CNC’s Publication Standardization Project (a project that took place in 2016, but this book has been printed in the beginning of the same year)².

 

 

I have received in early 2016 the articles from the President’s book with the title already determined for the publication, “The vision of commerce”. This has been a kind of job in which the designer doesn’t contact with the client, so it is usually a little more complicated on this case, I have not had the same professional contact that I would to have a year later with the coordinator of this book’s project, the CNC’s Economic Councilor, Ernane Galvêas (former Minister of Finance of Brazil (1980-1985) and former President of the Central Bank of Brazil (1968-1974 and 1979-1980)(IN MEMORIAN)). Therefore, I have been developing a line of reasoning according to what I have been thinking of the entity’s view and what the President has been wanting as an image for the institution. “Progress” is a word that has a very strong connotation in the business system in Brazil, not by coincidence, it is written on the country’s flag3. The search has been to concentrate to make a project in a safer line, because I am making this analysis now in comparison to other projects that I have been participating in this entity, I have not had the initial meeting with the project’s coordinator defining the briefing about the job, then I have been finding a guideline on the own system. 

 

With the obligation to follow the title of the publication, “The vision of commerce”, I have drawn a parallel line of concept, because I could not to go to a synthetic way, more conceptual, since “The vision of commerce” has necessarily had to be comprehensive, so I have gone to a composition of images, divided between the branches of the commerce activities that the CNC represents: Tourism, Retail, Exports, Products, Services, etc. I have been creating an interaction between the images, I have been using a texture with the aesthetic function, where it also has created the dynamic for the varnish for the cover. In the search to bring the cover to a more institutional composition and make it more “corporate”, I have been putting a gradient as if it would have a lens, it has been going from orange on the lower right to a light blue with plenty of transparency on the upper left.

 

From this cover, I have made three other books’ works with articles by President Antonio Oliveira Santos: “Saindo da crise” (2017), “Comércio 2018 - Um novo dia” (2108) and “A hora é esta - Artigos sobre a reforma tributária” (2018). The first two have gone very much along this line of reasoning, an autocentrist theme, where the President “directs” on the cover and in the publication the way forward for the trade sector in the year of its publication.

 

The book has been graphic monitoring in the printing process at Ultraset Press, in Rio de Janeiro, I have been trying to extract the maximum from the colors in this project.

 

1 National Confederation of Commerce of Goods, Services and Tourism (CNC – cnc.org. br) – Patronal syndical entity, which groups 34 Federations in the whole Brazilian territory, 27 referring to their respective states in Brazil and 7 of these 34 at national level, there are more than five million companies represented in the commerce that generate around 25.5 million direct and formal jobs, it acts in order that the sector is always present at the formulation of public policies, following the progress of the proposals of interest in the National Congress of Brazil and in the defense of the Constitution of Brazil, always it having in focus the laws that may impact the segment. 

 

The CNC was founded at 4th September of 1945, its current President is José Roberto Tadros, who succeeded Antonio Oliveira Santos, in an election that was held in 2018, and it is responsible for the administration of two institutions of great performances in Brazil and that form one of the largest systems of social development in the world, the institution of Commerce Social Service (Sesc – sesc.com.br) and the institution of National Service of Commercial Learning (Senac – senac.br), the first mentioned, with social projects, such as Mesa Brasil, Ecos Program of sustainability etc. (acts in the following areas: Alimentation, Culture, Education, Health, Leisure, Social Assisntence, Sports, Sustainability etc.) and the second in assisting the training and qualification of employees of the companies in the commerce sector (shopkeepers, waiters, chefs, hoteliers etc.).

 

2 Project of Standardization of the CNC’s Publications – A project in which the head of the Communications Office, Cristina Calmon, journalists from the sector and four designers from the CNC (myself included), together with an external communications office and a graphic design office hired studied all the publications produced in the entity to date, creating a line of reasoning, comparing them with each other, segmenting the various types of content of the entity and creating a harmony in relation to the new visual identity of the CNC (launched in 2012), creating a catalogue, etc. The publications were divided into groups: 1) Technical books; 2) Author’s books; 3) Reports; 4) Manuals; 5) Magazines; 6) Digital newsletters and digital publications.

 

3 On the Brazilian flag, the words “Order and Progress” are written.