Orçamento & Direitos editorial series, for INESC

Inesc (the Institute for Socioeconomic Studies) has monitored the public budget since the early 1990s and developed a methodology for reading it through the lens of human rights. An external evaluation identified expanding training for activists and leaders on this subject as strategic. The institute needed three publications to support the training, aimed at readers with schooling ranging from primary to higher education, with a visual language that would make a dry subject accessible without being childish.

We created a light, colorful identity in orange, pink, purple and green, and a graphic design with summary boxes opening each chapter, boxes for concepts and data, "Learn more" sections, highlighted testimonials, review questions and lines for notes in the participant's booklet.

The illustrations show the budget as a space of dispute: the State weighing choices in both hands, an elderly woman at the social security counter, a woman at the ballot box, the three branches of government, the budget law, taxes. The characters represent the country's diversity of gender, age, race and income. The series also includes portraits of thinkers who inspire the methodology, such as Paulo Freire, Milton Santos, Sueli Carneiro and Boaventura de Sousa Santos.

The three publications, the theoretical and methodological framework, the trainer's booklet and the participant's booklet, were delivered in print versions and as interactive PDFs to circulate online.