Gabriel Guilherme is a São Paulo-based multidisciplinary designer whose practice balances aesthetics and intention across graphic design, motion, and UI. Currently a designer at Estúdio Biabum, his experience spans collaborations with advertising agencies and branding consultancies alongside his work as an independent designer on commercial and personal projects.

The website is typeset in Antra by Muhittin Güneş.

Published to accompany the 2023 exhibition at MASP (São Paulo Museum of Art), this book is the first monograph on the Huni Kuin Artists’ Movement (MAHKU). Founded in 2013, the group began its work by translating traditional songs of the Huni Kuin people into figurative drawings, developed in Indigenous teaching degree courses at the Federal University of Acre (UFAC). The group’s paintings derive both from these translations and recordings of songs, myths, and ancestral stories, as well as from the visual experiences generated by the nixi pae rituals—which involve the ingestion of ayahuasca and are referred to as mirações (“visions”), the title of the project.

The bilingual book (Portuguese/English) also features transcriptions of Huni Kuin songs and myths, along with essays on the history and meaning of the collective’s practices and representations, complemented by reproductions of much of their visual production.

Graphic motifs inspired by the skin of the boa constrictor—a central theme in the group’s songs, paintings, and drawings—run throughout many of the works and were adapted into a geometric pattern framing every page of the book. The title on the cover is printed in glossy screen printing, using the geometric typeface Tokyto. This font’s design, also used for the artwork titles and section openings, is composed exclusively of diagonals and steps, without curves, referencing the graphic motifs presented throughout the catalog.

Stepping Softly on the Earth is a research-led exhibition featuring the work of twenty artists, most of them non-Western and Indigenous. Presented at the Northumbria University Gallery at Baltic, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on human relationships with land and territory from decolonial and anti-colonial perspectives. It brings together artistic practices that understand the world as a pluriverse – a reality in which many worlds coexist and support one another, where all beings are interconnected and the separation between humans and nature dissolves.

The works address themes such as ancestral cosmovisions, spirituality, inter-species communication, embodied knowledge, oral traditions, autonomy, mapping and legal frameworks. The exhibition title revisits a passage cited by Indigenous activist, writer and thinker Ailton Krenak in his 2022 book Ancestral Future. Krenak refers to a speech attributed to Chief Seattle (c.1786–1866), in which he says that his people “step softly on the Earth” because they are deeply connected to it, and invites colonisers to teach their children to do the same.

The catalog adopts a graphic language structured around expressive typography and a restrained color palette, which together organize the visual identity of the publication. The central element of the design is an angular, fragmented typography, Backslanted, used for the cover and section titles. Its geometric forms approach drawing as much as writing, suggesting multiple visual traditions while moving away from a neutral or institutional Western typographic language.

The color palette is based mainly on two tones, an earthy red and an intense yellow, applied as gradients across page backgrounds and edges. These fields of color evoke natural elements such as earth, sunlight and atmosphere, and function as visual environments that move through the book, creating continuity between different sections. The materiality of the object also reinforces the project’s conceptual framework: the exposed sewn binding and the earthy-toned cover emphasize the physicality of the book, suggesting a tactile and crafted quality. The texts are set in Gal Gothic, a Brazilian sans-serif typeface with subtle stroke contrast.

Visual identity for the exhibition Inezita Barroso: 100 anos de viola e pioneirismo for Sesc Mogi das Cruzes.

The show about Inezita Barroso (1925–2015) and “100 Years of Viola and Pioneering” is presented by Sesc Mogi das Cruzes to mark the artist’s centennial and bring together fifteen activities in her honor. The concept is anchored in enraizamento (“rootedness”), inspired by a statement Inezita made to Revista Brasil: “Something without roots flies away; the wind takes it and it disappears.” In her performances, Inezita was often seen wearing floral dresses, full skirts, and scarves, elements associated with traditional attire from Brazil’s countryside. The visual identity draws on this symbolic dimension by placing vernacular rural prints and folk embroidery at the center of the graphic system. The full booklet is available for download.

Until May 2026, the Centro Cultural TCU in Brasília is displaying an exhibition exhibition featuring works by Brazilian artist Tarsila do Amaral (1886–1973). The unprecedented show features more than 60 works, thematic curatorial centres and free educational activities.

Graphic designer Luisa Malheiros chose Maroni’s Regular weight and used it for the interior and exterior signage, as title typeface on the poster, as well as for other communication. The accompanying serif on the poster is Suisse Works Bold, and the sans used for exhibition texts appears to be Suisse Int’l.

The design of this third volume for Galpão da Lapa was developed in close connection with the exhibition design for Apaixonados (“Passionate”). The show brought together works by contemporary Brazilian artists in a display that emphasized interaction, both among the artworks and with the space, sometimes by affinity and sometimes by contrast. This dynamic was spatially translated into a layout of curved concrete-block walls, shaping the exhibition space into zones of pause and interaction, where voids, textures, and shadows also played an active role in the narrative.

The book seeks to reflect this same spatial and poetic logic in its graphic and material structure. The dust jacket, featuring a die-cut pattern derived from the architectural design, acts much like the perforated walls of the exhibition: at times revealing, at others concealing images and information, creating layers of reading and points of contact between content and materiality. The choice of papers was fundamental to support this concept.

We selected a black 290 g/m² paper for the dust jacket for its solid color and natural texture, which allows for precise die-cutting without exposing white corners, while preserving structural integrity – reinforcing the idea of shadow and material presence, also central to the exhibition design – while alluding to the negative spaces formed by the curved walls. For the cover, a warm gray 120 g/m² paper was chosen for its texture and subtle tone, echoing the color of the exhibition walls and allowing for black offset printing of the title and artist names, partially hidden beneath the dust jacket, which carries only a white silkscreen print on the spine.

Inside, the book alternates between a coated paper – ensuring high-quality image reproduction – and an uncoated off-white paper for the first and last sections. These opening and closing pages feature more abstract, black-and-white details of the artworks, marking the beginning and end of the book with purely graphic interludes.

These choices align with the architectural concept of Galpão da Lapa, a former 19th-century industrial warehouse in São Paulo’s Lapa neighborhood, repurposed to host temporary exhibitions of Brazilian contemporary art. The publication is part of a bilingual series (Portuguese and English) documenting the exhibitions held in the space. Each volume was designed to establish a specific graphic relationship with the curatorial and spatial proposal of its show. In this edition, the book assumes a more tactile, sensorial character, functioning not only as a visual documentation, but as a physical object that carries, within its materiality and graphic structure, the concept of the exhibition and the identity of the space itself.

The book was one of the winners of the AIGA 50 Books | 50 Covers of 2024.

Photos: Nino Andrés and Allec Gomes

The visual identity of the Paço do Frevo museum was revamped in February 2025.

Created by visual artist Joana Lira, together with the studios Alles Blau and Ligatura, the colors, shapes and representations that will accompany us from today on are “an alphabet of free bodies articulated in motion, mixed by graphs representing the sound frequencies of the frevo”.

The project includes print, merchandising, interior and exterior signage, using Maroni as the main display typeface.

On social media graphics, Maroni is supported by Silvana Text. The typeface by Brazilian designer Daniel Sabino is used in roman and italic styles.

Located in Recife, Brazil, Paço do Frevo is a Reference Center for the Safeguarding of Frevo, dedicated to the dissemination, research, leisure, and training in the areas of frevo dance and music. Its objective is to protect, promote, and propagate the practice for future generations and to be a space for the promotion and celebration of carnival culture and frevo throughout the year. Since 2014, Paço has developed exhibitions, activities, research, and events for the dissemination and protection of this Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, which should be revered every day.

The Frevo Vivo (“Living Frevo”) exhibition on the 3rd floor of the museum can now be explored in a 360° virtual tour.

Catalog of the exhibition Hélio Oiticica: Delirium Ambulatorium, edited by Tuîa Arte Produção and presented at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Brasília and Belo Horizonte.

Oiticica (Rio de Janeiro, 1937–1980) was one of the most inventive artists of Brazilian Neoconcretism and the author of the term Tropicália—the title of one of his installations, which inspired an artistic and musical movement that gained international recognition.

Organized by Bruna Neiva, the book features texts by Moacir dos Anjos and historical photographs by Andreas Valentim, Cláudio Oiticica, Marcos Bonisson, and Sólon Ribeiro.

On the cover, the title appears only through embossed lettering (without ink), giving the book the appearance of a block wrapped in solid colors on all sides. This design echoes the monumental installation Magic Square #3: The Invention of Color, an open-air labyrinth of color and one of the exhibition’s highlights. Inside, readers are invited to interact with folded pages that function as visual and tactile interactive surfaces, in dialogue with works such as the Relevos Espaciais (Spatial Reliefs) and with the sensory dimension that Oiticica brought to art.

The book is set in Lygia and Lygia Sans, by Brazilian type designer Flavia Zimbardi. Both draw inspiration from the work of artists such as Lygia Clark and Oiticica himself, reinforcing the relevance of this choice.

The book was named a semifinalist for the Jabuti Prize in the Best Graphic Design category.

Like any other catalog published by the CCBB, the book can be read and downloaded on the institution’s digital archive.

This Brazilian poetry book, aimed at young audiences, is a publication by Baião, a label of the Todavia publishing house. The Brazilian fonts Seiva and Lygia, alongside Gabriel Furmiga’s drawings, compose a visually rich work, with unique drawings on each page that capture the attention of young readers.

A primeira coisa que existiu: Poesia brasileira para jovens leitores (“The First Thing That Existed: Brazilian Poetry for Young Readers.”) gathers twenty poets who make this little spell of words called poetry happen like no one else. With drawings by Gabriel Furmiga and organization by Bruna Beber and Fabrício Corsaletti, the anthology brings together names such as Arnaldo Antunes, Eliane Potiguara, Ana Martins Marques, Chacal, Gregorio Duvivier, Miriam Alves and Ledusha Spinardi. The design was created by Nathalia Navarro.

Brazilian publishing house Act. released a monograph dedicated to contemporary art in Latin America, titled Sonhos ao Sol: Miragens da Arte na América Latina (“Dreams in the Sun: Mirages of Art in Latin America”). It comprises art pieces created between 1900 and 2024 by more than 140 artists around the themes of the dream, the irrational or the fantasy.

The in-house designers chose Plain Form’s Ready Active for the title on the back of the book page numbers, initials, and the occasional typographically built ornament. The front cover features an abstract pattern created from the letters of the title used in an abstract overlapping central symetry.

The typeface used for all other typographical elements, from headlines, running texts and captions is Jean-Baptiste Morizot’s NaN Tragedy. Both subfamilies of Tragedy were used, the narrower and more contrasted Display for headlines and captions and the wider and sturdier Text for the long-running texts.

Electric Jungle Fever / Febre da Selva Elétrica is an exhibition by Brazilian artist Vivian Caccuri at the Galeria Municipal do Porto, curated by Bernardo José de Souza.

In the words of the curator, the set of works presented in Electric Jungle Fever “primarily highlights the aesthetic and political research that the artist has been developing for well over a decade: sound as a central element of life, whether as a form of communication between species or as a language, such as music, an artistic manifestation that mobilises humanity, both in its ritualistic experiences and hedonistic expressions.”

Holise is used for the body copy for this event. Titles are set in caps from ABC Diatype.

Visual identity assets designed for the Instituto Guaicuy –

a non-profit entity that emerged from the fight to preserve the Rio das Velhas basin and its activities are dedicated to defending the environment. […] Its actions are guided by popular activism in the search for ways of life that promote socially fair and environmentally sustainable coexistence between people, water and territory.

The campaign graphics were used for an event by the Comissões de Pessoas Atingidas das regiões 4 e 5 (“Committees of affected people from regions 4 and 5” in Southeast Brazil. This meeting took place in December 2024 in Curvelo, Minas Gerais, and was dedicated to the fight for full and effective reparation for people affected by the 2019 Vale dam collapse in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais.

Montserrat Alternates was chosen to write the project titles. Its charismatic design in letters like E, M, and A, along with the mix of uppercase and lowercase characters, added personality to the pieces while aligning with Guaicuy’s branding.

See also the previous post about a series of related maps and infographics.

The motto on the tote bag is adapted from a quote by the artist and researcher Isabela Frade. It reads “Em água de peixe grande, é necessário ser cardume”, which translates to something like “When in waters with big fish, it is necessary to form a school”.

The cardume (school of fish) is comprised of various native fish species which are depicted with the Portuguese and Latin names.

“Access to information, access to participation, access to reparations”

The visual identity for the inauguration of Sesc Franca brings the typographic experimentation of its workshops to large-scale screens and supports. The entire graphic was developed using the procedural animation software Cavalry. BVH Eiffel by André Baldinger and Fanny Hamelin from BVH Type brings the complex architecture of the new building to the visual identity.

Chico e o Mar is a band from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, formed in 2018. The band’s music style blends US indie and Brazilian pop, resulting in an authentic and powerful sound.

The band’s first album was a vibrant and cohesive work that captured the youthful excitement of its time. It was inspired by the world of skateboarding and its accompanying ephemera prints, which were popular in the 90s in the counter-culture scene.

The use of photographic thresholds, collages, stickers, hand lettering, and a limited color palette were all essential tools for this project. Alongside Jean-Luc, a bold grotesque typeface, and Neue Haas Grotesk, a versatile sans serif, we established a potent and playful aura for the band’s visual identity.

The fifth edition of Sesc Jazz showcased contemporary musical productions linked to jazz, popular instrumental music, and improvisation. The event took place from October 18 to November 5, 2023, at Sesc Pompeia and Sesc 14 Bis.

The festival’s curatorial design tours countries where musical practices of African origin have deeply marked the territories bathed by the Atlantic. In this context, jazz functions as a form of opposition to colonial culture, an avant-garde black expression resulting from improvisation, sharing, and connection.

Giulia Fagundes explains that developing visuals to represent “the displacement of the center”, as proposed by the festival’s curators, and “assuming the symbolic place of contesting the power relations present within it” was the project’s greatest challenge. The goal was to bring the various paths of the Afro-diasporic culture and its aesthetic autonomies into a cohesive visual identity.

The graphic solution involved surveying references from posters promoting “Bailes Black”, dance balls organized in Brazil in the 1970s–80s, like the “Chic Show” parties in São Paulo. The political nature of these gatherings promoted an affirmation of the identity of black people in the diaspora and created a new way of occupying urban space through shared sound, a way of dressing and being in the world.

This visual exploration resonates with other references, such as the posters and newspapers of the Black Panther Party designed by Emory Douglas and the pamphlets from African independence movements of the same period. These references informed the festival’s illustrations, mainly through halftones, which convey the urgency and insurgency of serialized printing, valued for its speed and practicality.

Inspired by the typographic mix in the gathered materials, Giulia Fagundes chose Monopol and Monopol Kompakt by Nguyen Gobber as the main typefaces. Acumin by Robert Slimbach and Tiny by Jack Halten Fahnestock were used for supporting text.

The colors create contrasts and unexpected combinations that, together with the illustrations, define the visual language for various applications, including the festival’s printed materials, posters for decorating the venue, websites and promotional videos.

Design and art direction: Giulia Fagundes
Illustrations: Pedro Pessanha
Design printed materials: Thaíse Carvalho & Júlia França
Design digital materials: Wendel Anthuny & Tainá Simões
Motion / photography: Laís Dantas

Booklet for the theatrical play Fantasmagoria IV, directed by acclaimed Brazilian director Felipe Hirsch. The play premiered in São Paulo in 2024 and reflects on many subjects surrounding linguistics and the meaning (or meaninglessness) of art itself.

Solfa is used for the titles, paired with Pollen for the texts.

Encantado is the new album by Brazilian singer-songwriter Silva. We were invited to develop its identity and a homonymous publication that is the tactile soul of the album, bringing together details of his creative process.

[More info on Discogs]

The identity for the inauguration of the new Sesc 14 Bis found the basis for new graphics in the glass grid of the facade. The bright color palette originates from the vai-vai samba school, which belongs to the surrounding area. NN Knit Grotesk, designed by Rüdiger Schlömer and available from Nouvelle Noire, recalls traditional lace techniques from northeastern Brazil. It is paired with Wigrum from Production Type.

Quilo is a single edition bookish publication conceived by Mico Toledo and designed by Porto Rocha (Natalia Oledzka and Victor Carvalho). It brings together the work of 38 contemporary photographers and six writers from Brazil in an unprecedented collection of some of the country’s best documentary photography and writing.

Over the past few years, conservative ideologies have had a negative impact on Brazil’s cultural environment. Against this backdrop, documenting the numerous communities that inhabit the country's political landscape, the magazine can be seen as an act of rebellion or a testament of love and resilience – a sanctuary in print. It celebrates the diverse creative communities of Brazil and serves as a counterstrike against the growing extremism and intolerance in the country, under the oppressive rule of the former president.

Spanning across 300 pages, the magazine is an amalgamation of short stories and visuals from over 40 contributors such as Jonathas de Andrade, Valda Nogueira, Rodrigo Oliveira, Stefanie Moshammer to name a few. It takes readers on a meandering journey from the northernmost reaches of the country to its southern tip. With each section introduced by writers from that region, readers get a glimpse into the folklore of the country. It strives to add depth and texture to the stories, while oscillating between photographs that capture moments frozen in time overlayed with grainy texture, muted tones and words that evoke emotion to guide the reader to the heart of the narrative.

The editorial design and visual language captures the essence of Brazil in the present day. The layouts, inspired by Brazilian Modernist design vernacular, are raw and bold. While the neutral and approachable kraft paper cover speaks to a more rustic side of the country. The typography combines the classic serif Ivar Text with Scto Grotesk B, a semi-condensed neogrotesque with expressive details, creating a feeling that is both contemporary and timeless. The interplay between tension and fluidity is created by the juxtaposition of free flowing visuals punctuated with text.

The front cover shows the table of contents, sandwiched between the publication title set in a narrow style of ABC Gravity and a tagline set in Scto Grotesk B and Millionaire.

The São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (Osesp) is a key player in the cultural scene of São Paulo. Established in 1954, the orchestra has had its headquarters in various theaters and auditoriums, facing challenges and achieving triumphs along the way. In the field of graphic design, it gained recognition with the series of posters created by Kiko Farkas in the early 2000s, immortalized in the book "Musical Posters" (Cosac Naify). Today, based in the iconic Sala São Paulo, Osesp is acknowledged as the best Latin American orchestra.

In 2023, Polar was invited by Osesp to revisit its graphic legacy and develop a new visual identity, adaptable to its diverse application needs and capable of attracting a new audience to discover it. The new identity, aiming to be a sensory and captivating invitation to rediscover classical music, was conceived through the juxtaposition of two distinct layers.

The first layer, rational and disciplined by nature, emphasizes the dialogue between time, rhythm, and tempo. This approach is reflected in vertical bars that run through the entire graphic system, as well as in the flexible logo, where the letters forming "Osesp" are arranged like musical notes in a nod to a music score.

The second layer of the visual identity focuses on emotion and seeks to express, with sensitivity, the experience of listening to and watching the orchestra. In this aspect, a grouping of shapes reacts to musical information, transcending the technical aspect of sheet music. The abstract graphics represent the sensations and moods evoked by the music. To create these elements, a generative design system called "Instrument" was developed. In this system, a sound input is visually translated into compositions of ellipses, allowing for the creation of infinite compositions and a connection with the pieces they reference.

The color palette, with its variety, provides the flexibility needed to reflect the diversity of emotions conveyed by the orchestra. Additionally, it facilitates the creation of derivative identities for specific projects, keeping the brand constantly refreshed over the years. The typographic voice of the institution is entrusted to Gal Gothic, designed by Brazilian type foundry Blackletra, with a highly functional design that connects with the music universe from its inception. For editorial materials, Silva Text is added to the typographic selections, ensuring both readability and a high level of sophistication for text-heavy pieces. These typographic choices not only meet the design team’s specific needs but also pay homage to two musical artists from different generations, both integral to the Brazilian musical repertoire.