"Aloísio Magalhães", by Mônica Fuchshuber

Aloísio Magalhães took his first steps in the field of graphic design took place while he was still attending law school in Recife. In 1950, during his last year as a student, he made illustrations for a book of poetry, Palhano, written by a friend of his the university, José Laurenio de Melo. Having finished his course, Aloisio headed for Paris, where he intended to study painting and engraving with Stanley Hayter at the Atelier 17 studio, an important European center of engraving.

In 1954, influenced by the renowned Brazilian poet (and his cousin) João Cabral de Melo Neto – he set up, together with some friends, a modest print shop called O Gráfico Amador that, during the eight subsequent years that it was operating, published 27 books, 3 sets of fliers, 2 bulletins and a theater program.

In 1960 Magalhães founded a design office whose name was originally Aloísio Magalhães. In 1976, PVDI became its official name (this original office is still functioning, carrying out projects in the area of visual identity systems and product design).

It is only in 1970 that his office develops its first large design project in Brazil for Petrobras, the giant state-owned Brazilian oil company. The scope of the project ranged from the design of a symbol that would be stamped on oil packaging to the entire system of visual identity that would be displayed both at distribution points and on gas pumps at all of the gas stations run by the company.

In 1976, Brazil’s Central Bank commissioned him once again to render services to the institution (in fact his office had already carried out a few jobs for it in 1967 and 1972). This assignment comprised redesigning Brazil’s units of currency. Thus the project encompassed the task of defining a complex system of creation, including aspects such as selecting the most appropriate graphic motives to be used as well as key decisions regarding the technology to be adopted – amongst the types of technology available at that time. The project, as a whole, aimed to make Brazil self-sufficient in the production of its paper bills and coins.

In 1979, Magalhães takes on the post of administrating the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional – IPHAN (Brazil’s Institute of Historic and Artistic National Patrimony). His ideas regarding the management of this institution had a lot in common with the ones advocated by Mário de Andrade 50 years before. Hence, he proceeded to promote a revolution in the institute’s policies, when compared with the long-lasting, deeply ingrained policies that the IPHAN upheld at the time. His broad vision, which embodied the concept of what a cultural asset should be, and his philosophy that the custody of the shared patrimony should be transferred to the community that is primarily concerned with it, set new and unprecedented paradigms in the handling of the national memory. At that time, Magalhães — taking advantage of his talent as a designer – begins drafting a new layout for the institutional framework connected to the cultural issue in Brazil.

As the outcome of intense political maneuvers and persuasiveness, IPHAN finally becomes a Secretariat directly subordinated to MEC (Brazil’s Ministry of Education and Culture) in January 1980 and soon later the Fundação Nacional Pró-Memória (Pro-Memory National Foundation) is created. Consistent to his efforts to reorganize the infrastructure of state agencies with respect to their form of handling issues related to culture, he takes up the presidency of the Fundação Nacional de Arte (National Art Foundation) and is later invited to become Brazil’s Secretary of Culture.

He dies from a stroke in Padua, Italy, in 1982.

November 5 – Aloísio Magalhães’ date of birth – has become Brazil’s National Designers Day, a homage paid to the contributions he made in the profession.

via :: REDE DESIGN BRASIL ::.