Os Sete Maridos de Evelyn Hugo
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo tells the story of a star from Hollywood's Golden Age who spends her entire life seeking her place in the world and doing everything in her power to get what she wants. Amid the long-awaited dramas of the lives of Hollywood actresses from the 60s, Evelyn Hugo falls in love with a fellow cast member. This new edition of the best-selling fiction book of 2019 in Brazil sought to solve with graphic design some reading comprehension issues, and also sought to represent the glamor brought in this story and use its narrative as a way to make use of literature and editorial design to strengthen the minority support network through a subscription book club.
Solution
The group developed a graphic project that brought references to the most striking features of the story, relating it to the story of LGBTQIA+ rights, an important part of the plot. It focused mainly on comfort reading, in understanding the changes in the narrative point of view and translating creative concepts (glamour, 1960s and spectacle) both in the literary book graphic design and in the development of the other items in the kit. The object book worked with specific items from the book's plot, bringing all the letters and souvenirs that the protagonist would have kept for herself, and the information booklet was composed of texts translated by members of the group dealing with the life and work of the author, the story of the LGBTQIA+ rights and the real-life actresses who would have inspired the creation of Evelyn Hugo.
Cultural context
The cultural context brought by this project is a portrait of what life was like for someone who was part of the LGBTQIA+ community in Hollywood during the 60s, portrayed in this graphic project as a way to bring comfort to readers, considering that the intended target audience would be people from social minorities who were cut off from their support network during the Covid-19 pandemic. The fictional publisher was named "amapô", which means "woman" in the Pajubá dialect (dialect used by LGBTQIA+ to communicate during the Brazilian military dictatorship), and was created with the aim of using literature and editorial design to strengthen the support network minority groups through a subscription book club. The idea is to welcome the reader and instigate research into the history of the struggle for rights in their community.
Interdisciplinary academic non-profit project carried out as part of the sixth semester of the bachelor's degree in Graphic Design with Emphasis on Typography from Anhembi Morumbi University, in the first semester of 2021.
Instructor: Prof. Me. Érico Lebedenco.
Students team: Jéssica Oliveira, Ana Luiza Teixeira, Jéssica Ferreira, Carla Ricciotti, Gabriela Valotto e Vitória Dourado.
You can see the entire project here.
