Peso Vero | 2011
Vieira, P.; Leite, D. (2011). Peso Vero. Belém: Pakatatu.
work: illustration (for Paulo Vieira’s edition) & design
This reversible book-object is dedicated to Belém’s Ver-o-Peso market. Written by Paulo Vieira and Daniel da Rocha Leite, it contains two editions in a single physical volume: each side has its own front cover, and there is no fixed back cover. To read the other edition, the reader flips the book upside down and begins again from the opposite side. This structure makes the object itself part of the work, giving the book two entrances and reflecting the market as a place of movement, exchange and overlapping voices.
The cover was conceived as a digital collage rooted in Belém’s visual reality. Its brown field recalls the opaque waters of the river, while blue brushstrokes suggest the sky. When the book is turned upside down, sky becomes water and water becomes sky, reinforcing the reversible structure of the object and extending the wordplay already present in the market’s name, Ver-o-Peso.
About the illustration
The illustrations for Paulo Vieira’s edition were made using ArtGraf graphite watercolour, a then-new material developed by the Portuguese pencil manufacturer Viarco. Its use allowed the drawings to keep graphite as a common visual language across the whole book, linking them to Maciste Costa’s illustrations for Daniel da Rocha Leite’s edition, while giving Paulo Vieira’s side a distinct material character. Because the graphite is activated with water, the technique also brought water into the making of the images themselves — a fitting element for a book centred on Ver-o-Peso, its riverside setting, and the fluid life of the market.
