Editorial · 2025
An editorial system that lets long essays breathe.
Forma Journal publishes four issues a year, each built around a single city problem: housing, water, shade or noise. The editors asked for a format that could hold six-thousand-word essays and dense technical drawings in the same issue.
Challenge
Contributors deliver material in very different states, from finished drawings to phone photographs. Earlier issues solved each spread individually, so every issue took longer to produce than the last.
Approach
We built a twelve-column grid with three fixed text widths, a strict scale for drawings and a cover system based on one oversized number per issue. Templates let the editors lay out most spreads themselves.
Result
Production time per issue fell from nine weeks to five. The cover numbers became the journal’s most recognisable feature, and bookshops now display back issues spine-out as a series.
Project details
- Client — Forma Journal
- Year — 2025
- Discipline — Editorial
- Location — São Paulo, Brazil
Credits
- Editorial direction — Ana Ortega
- Design — Clara Mendes
- Typesetting — Joana Pires