Tupigrafia

Claudio Rocha and Tony de Marco founded the magazine Tupigrafia at the turn of the millennium in São Paulo and they have never stopped working for it since then. They are editorial designers and a long-standing point of reference for visual artists, communicators, researchers, teachers, calligraphers, street writers and letterpress people in Brazil. They created Tupigrafia because they wanted to have fun with letterforms and to keep in touch with like-minded readers, exchanging ideas and experiences on the type scene. Their astonishing and unconventional magazine has always reflected the state of the typographic and lettering arts in Brazil and worldwide.  Now, after more than twenty years and 13 issues available only in the Portuguese language and almost all out of print, Tupigrafia’s masterminds Rocha and De Marco, are launching the first English anthology of the original magazine. A powerful and colourful 208-page volume featuring Tupigrafia’s vibrant contents for an international audience of lettering and type devotees. This unpredictable and unmissable anthology will feature some of the most inventive and groundbreaking Tupigrafia topics such as, among others, the sign painters known as ‘abridores de letras’, who work on the boats of the Amazon; the Dutch postage stamps created by Gerrit Noordzij, Wim Crouwel, Joost Swarte and others; the wall paintings by Fefê Talavera for the ‘concrete jungle’ of São Paulo; the whimsical wood types of the Tipoteca Italiana and also the hidden typography of a pencil collection.