The thesis, “Viarco: Heritage of a Nacional Industry”, started because there was a need to reflect how everyday objects can convey messages, values, and mostly be part of a country’s identity.
It was developed starting with a group of questions that brought us to research and collecting the available estate, graphic and historical, from Viarco’s Pencil Factory.
“We believe that objects can communicate extraordinary and reveling stories about commonwealth and their peculiar taste, about a society and its context, about a story that in the end is a common identity.” – A Vida Portuguesa
This research study of investigation intends to bring to knowledge the graphic estate from Viarco’s pencil factory, as a reference example in the industrial landscape in Portugal from the beginning of the XX century. This centennial factory, since 2007, with origin in Vila do Conde and today located in São João da Madeira, gave particular attention to the packaging of it’s pencil boxes. It is, therefore an image base research, which approaches the brand historical path, since it’s foundation in 1907, until today.
The historical period of the Portuguese pencil factory has the particularity of including the last monarchy years, the republic, the dictatorship and the entrance of Portugal to the EEC – European Economic Community. It was, therefore, necessary to cross-reference the factory’s path, as an historical and political point of view and the graphic arts evolution.
The book “Viarco – Herança de uma Indústria Nacional”, editorial project that goes along with this report, starts with the goal of illustrating in document the findings during the investigation. In parallel, it also looks to divulge the estate that in a different way, would be forgotten. That way, the project pretends to preserve the historical and cultural memory of the brand patrimony.
While designing the layout, we approached the book organization following in mind that:
- There was a big amount of image-based information, with several different proportions.
- Most of the text is transcripts and citations from newspapers and interviews.
-A horizontal navigation was achieved because the chosen book bind allowed for the spreads to be completely opened thus displaying the most interesting big scale images in their totality. Because of this the grid had to be very flexible so that the pictures could fit.
-The main book is an ode to the Portuguese industry and handicraft, therefore everything from the paper to the font used are made in Portugal.
The final result are two books and a Portuguese pencil.
- The Thesis -
- The Project -
This thesis was to obtain the masters degree in Communication Design.
