Imprensa Nacional - A Idade do Papel
Art Direction / Editorial / Print
A Idade do Papel [The Age of Paper] is a two-volume collection published by Imprensa Nacional and directed by Miguel Figueira de Faria, dedicated to the art of Portuguese engraving. This first volume focuses in particular on the life of Joaquim Carneiro da Silva (1732–1818), the first master engraver at the Portuguese Royal Printing House, an indispensable educator and key figure in the visual culture of the Enlightenment in Portugal.
As a tribute to such a remarkable figure and such a noble field, the book is an ode to graphic arts. A unique waltz between typographic choices, visual details, paper selection and print finishes. As a way of drawing even closer to the work of this singular master engraver, each chapter opens with the step-by-step method he developed for drawing printing letterforms.
As a creative artefact, this book pays very particular homage to the ingenuity and artistry of Joaquim Carneiro da Silva.
As a way of drawing even closer to the work of this singular master engraver, each chapter opens with the step-by-step method he developed for drawing printing letterforms.
A Idade do Papel — Volume 2
The second volume of A Idade do Papel — Cultura Visual em Portugal, das Luzes à Revolução [Visual Culture in Portugal, from the Enlightenment to the Revolution] — confirms and deepens the editorial identity of the collection, while finding a voice of its own. The cover, in choosing metallic paper as its starting point, anchors the book in the materiality of the very craft it documents. And the typographic relief overprinting transforms the first encounter into an act of slow reading and tactile discovery, coherent with a volume dedicated to the printed image. The chapter openings, by sequencing the engraving process throughout the book, create a visual narrative that accompanies and illuminates the academic text, offering the reader a sensory thread that translates, in image, the progression of the themes.
The result is a book that practises what it studies: it uses printing, paper and ink as a vehicle for reflecting on the power those very means had in transforming Portuguese visual culture.
The chapter openings, by sequencing the engraving process throughout the book, create a visual narrative that accompanies and illuminates the text.
