Editorial
Commercial code
Summary:
Graphic design of books – Creation, conceptualization and execution of the project, including partial diagramming of one of the books and total layout of all the other booklets, abstract illustrations for the covers, cover and graphic monitoring of the printing process.
Publication that has contained entire of the Brazilian Commercial Code, added to comments, suggestions for adjustments to the Code, analyses etc. signed by members who represent the interests of the National Confederation of Commerce of Goods, Services and Tourism (CNC)1. The purpose of the publication has been to become supporting material for lobbying in favour of new legislative proposals of interest to Brazilian commerce. This project preceded the CNC’s Project for the Standardization of Publications2.
Process and conceptualisation:
I have received this demand from one of the entity’s Juridical Counselors, who had been leading this great project, which has involved the Federal Chamber of Deputies and the Brazilian Senate, for a reformulation of the Brazilian Commercial Code.
Publications with subjects related to Law are always very complicated to make a visual project, because the tendency to fall into the common place is enormous, for example, the images of balances, statues of Justice, etc. The head of the CNC’s Communication Department, Cristina Calmon, would want me to go down an abstract path, I had already rejected six versions of covers prior to the one that, it has resulted in the illustration for this project. The idea that has been resulting on the cover is an abstraction in the form of graphics, it alludes to a large context of items, one being the bigger group as these represent the original content, then others smaller groups of “topics” being attached, with links joining the parts and forming a single piece of the trellis.
The subject matter has been very serious, I have adopted a layout with a single columnage per page for the booklets, in the pursuit of giving space to the insertion of the content to create a clear hierarchy of elements would be necessary, in order to emphasize the observations that would to be incremented in the original Code. For the same reason, to distinguish the theme, I have used two colours per cover (the book and three other booklets, one in the English version), it has been keeping a very institutional and corporative line.
In images 3, 4 and 5 some parliamentarians of the commerce have been doing a seminar on the theme.
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.
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