Summary:

Graphic design for a book – Layout, cover design, image selection and editing, diagramming and graphic supervision.

A book compiling articles by the President of the National Confederation of Trade in Goods, Services and Tourism (CNC)¹, focusing on Tax Reform, to be presented to a select group of people.

Process and concept:

The CNC’s Economic Adviser and Coordinator of the CNC Technical Council², 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 MEMORIAM)), had organised and compiled articles on the subject that was one of the most relevant to the commerce’s sector: Tax Reform. The aim of the publication was for it to serve as supporting material for lobbying influential figures in favour of the Reform.

The deadline was tight and I have already had many other projects on the go at the same time of this one; the designer and my colleague at CNC, Ricardo Almeida, together with the freelance photographer, Guarim de Lorena, has been leading a project to create a stock image library, and had taken numerous photos of the Port of Rio de Janeiro, amongst other locations. In my quest to complete the work in a timely manner, I have thought of the image bank the two have been creating, as I have wanted to broaden the scope of the initial research for this project; I have been thinking specifically of export products, the theme being the tax burden. Upon analysing the material they had already produced, my attention has been drawn to some photos of the pier with containers; I have made a selection and added them to my research to generate alternatives for the cover images.

The CNC’s Economic Advisor, Ernane Galvêas, has given me the title for the publication, “A hora é esta” (The time is now), a generic title that required the layout to be very clear in order to complement and further explain the book through its cover. I have reviewed the photographic material that I had collected and all the research I done, and focused on the photo showing the moment when the crane was lifting a container to be loaded onto a lorry for transport. There it was: “A hora é esta!”. The action in the image connecting with the title and the tax burden, linking the two, as export products are the most heavily taxed according to the articles contained in the book.

This cover has created using five colours: black and four special colours (Pantone Green, Pantone Red 032, Pantone Yellow 012 and Pantone Medium Purple), very vivid colours; the more basic the Pantone colour, the stronger it is, it is less mixed. Some of the colours chosen for this project, such as the Pantone Green on the front cover and the Pantone Medium Purple on the back cover, are the base colours for many other Pantone colours. I had oversaw the graphic design, and when everyone received their copies, they have been very impressed. The journalist and member of the Technical Council, João Ricardo Moderno, told that he had never seen a green like it before.

1 National Confederation of Trade in Goods, Services and Tourism (CNC – cnc.org.br) – An employers’ trade union body comprising 34 federations across Brazil, 27 representing their respective states and 7 of these 34 operating at national level, representing over five million businesses in the trade sector that generate around 25.5 million direct and formal jobs; through its structure, it works to ensure the sector is always involved in the formulation of public policy, monitoring the progress of relevant proposals in the National Congress and defending the Constitution, always keeping a close eye on legislation that may impact the sector.

The CNC was founded on 4 September 1945; its president is responsible for the administration of two institutions with significant operations in Brazil, which form one of the largest social development systems in the world: the Social Service of Commerce (SESC – sesc.com.br) and the National Commercial Apprenticeship Service (SENAC – senac.br), the former with social projects such as Mesa Brasil, the Ecos Sustainability Programme, etc. (operating in the following areas: Food, Social Assistance, Culture, Education, Sport, Leisure, Health, Sustainability, etc.) and the latter providing support for the training and upskilling of employees in the commerce sector (shopkeepers, waiters, chefs, hospitality staff, etc.).

2 CNC Technical Council – A group where various men and women who have distinguished themselves in their respective fields gave lectures which were later published as articles; they include diplomats, judges, lawyers, economists, philosophers, etc., among them the Coordinator of the CNC Technical Council and Economic Adviser to the CNC, 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 MEMORIAM)), José Bernardo Cabral (Rapporteur of the 1988 Brazilian Constituent Assembly, former Minister of Justice and former Senator of the Republic), Carlos Tadeu de Freitas Gomes (former Director of the Central Bank), Cid Heraclito de Queiroz (former Attorney-General of the National Treasury from 1979 to 1991), Ives Gandra da Silva Martins (Professor Emeritus at Mackenzie University, UNIP, UNIFEO, UNIFMU, CIEE/O Estado de São Paulo, the Army Command and General Staff Schools (ECEME), the War College (ESG) and the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region; Honorary Professor at Austral University (Argentina), San Martín de Porres University (Peru) and Vasili Goldis University (Romania); Honorary Doctorate from the Universities of Craiova (Romania) and the PUCs of Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul, and Full Professor at the University of Minho (Portugal); Chairman of the Higher Council of Law at FECOMÉRCIO-SP; Former President of the São Paulo Academy of Letters (APL) and the São Paulo Lawyers’ Institute (IASP), Arnaldo Niskier (Member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and former President of CIEE/RJ), Vasco Mariz (historian and diplomat, former Brazilian Ambassador to Ecuador, Israel, Cyprus, Peru and Germany), Nelson Mello e Souza (philosopher, former Chancellor of Estácio de Sá University and member of the Brazilian Academy of Philosophy), Samuel Buzaglo (lawyer, former Deputy Attorney General of the Republic), João Paulo de Almeida Magalhães (economist and researcher at the Centre for Development Studies at CORECON/RJ), Arnaldo Wald (lawyer and Full Professor at UERJ), Marcus Faver (Appellate Judge, former President of the Rio de Janeiro Court of Appeal), Claudio Contador (economist, Executive Director of SILCON), Mary Del Priore (historian and writer, member of the São Paulo Academy of Letters), João Ricardo Moderno (journalist), Roberto Fendt (economist, former Special Secretary for Foreign Trade at the Ministry of Economy, Executive Secretary of the Brazil-China Business Council), Maria Beltrão (archaeologist, scientist and researcher, former professor at UERJ, former Director of External Relations at IHGB), Gilberto Paim (journalist) etc.