“People from the Cape Verdean school community were invited to participate and contribute together with the editorial team to the construction of the book (...) is a textbook that gives visibility to the cultural and social context in which it is involved”

Identities on the other side of the mirror by margarita dias and Maria Lurdes Gomes. in DERIVAS # 6 2022, pp 316-317 link

In Cape Verde, following the approval of the educational project, the Ministry of Education, through the National Directorate of Education, began in 2017 the review of the education system that included the reformulation of the curriculum matrix, the programs, the school textbooks and other didactic/pedagogical materials and resources, for basic and secondary education. A large movement to develop school textbooks was initiated in the archipelago, mobilizing funding, teachers(s), addressing all existing urgencies and deficiencies.

In this context, Oficina de Utopias was responsible for the editorial design and illustration of the Professor’s Guide: one for the 1st Cycle integrating the 3 areas of Musical, Dramatic and Plastic Expression; and two volumes for the 5th and 6th years, organized one for Dramatical and Musical Expression and another for Plastic Expression.

The structure of the three areas was visually defined by the link to a reduced and easily recognizable palette for the person consulting the Guide. Carefully considered, the images and their importance compose layers of reading, interpretation, relationship and appropriation with the texts, constituting in themselves a fundamental content.

The standardization of visual language in the three textbooks, aimed to create an identity committed to the new disciplinary area in Cape Verde: Artisic Education, as well as all the reference and representation of people in their diversity, their cultures, crafts and artistic practices in the archipelago.

The photographs of school contexts in Cape Verde, the visual references of production works of students in these schools and the explanatory drawings of movements and processes make up the image globality of the Guides.

Other manuals were designed following the same principles described above for the disciplines of Portuguese Language, Mathematics, Geography and History.


Editing. Ministry of Education of the Government of Cape Verde
Design. Oficina de Utopias

Collaboration. Gilardi Reis
Date. 2018-20