Stories Of A Street That Once Was A Ferry

Designers: Estúdio Guayabo, Patrícia Rezende, Valquíria Rabelo
Project Type: Produced, Commercial Work
School: Universidade Federal Fluminense
Location: Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Packaging Contents: Book
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Paper
Printing Process: Offset

“Estórias da rua que foi balsa” (or “Stories of a street that once was a ferry”) is a book written by five healthcare professionals, such as nurses, physicians and researchers who have lived in different regions of Brazil. The book shows a sensitive perspective of healthcare work, affected by the experience and the other. In the texts, the navigation metaphor is repeatedly used to describe the professional everyday: to go through unknown paths, to dive into the Popular Education waters, to share experiences and points of view. The reports and poems also show a social criticism, typical of the Popular Education field, but at the same time the language is joyful, light and full of plays on words.

In order to evoke the navigation imagery, we have defined a color pallet inspired in seaside landscapes: the sky, the water, the sand. These colors were applied in texts, graphics and image treatment. With large margin and spacings, the inner pages grid provides light compositions. The types Leitura Roman and Din Pro Light also contribute to a comfortable reading.

A postcard illustrated by the visual artist Paula Wong was inserted among the initial pages of the book. Besides being a promotional print, the postcard also connects the ideas of traveling and correspondence, present in the texts and in the own itinerant experience of the authors.

What’s Unique?
To design the dust jacket we have used as reference the fold marks of a paper boat. After folding and unfolding, we have found in the paper sheet a geometrical pattern, from which we extracted a few graphic elements: taking the marks as guidelines, we have applied three colors in triangle shapes that seem to move one towards another. The grid defined by the marks also guided the dust jacket folds. The dust jacket also brings a sort of invitation: instructions for the readers to cut, fold and assemble their own little paper boats. It is up to them transforming it or keeping its original form.