Reactivation of Graphic Memory and Technical Knowledge of the Past as Factors of Industrial Competitiveness—The Case Study of the Development of Cento & Vinte at Confiança’s Letterpress Workshop

Abstract

AbstractIn 1950, Confiança Soap and Perfume Factory created a letterpress workshop on its premises, a rare example in the Portuguese industrial panorama. However, today, the use of its letterpress workshop has fallen out of use and is in danger of being dismantled. Complementing and in coordination with a historical and theoretical research and fieldwork, a design project component materialised in the “research-production” modality (Moreira in Edifícios & vestígios: Projeto-ensaio sobre espaços pós-industriais, Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda, Lisbon, 2012)—a project-based research methodology—was developed, resulting in the development of a new product (“Cento & Vinte”). The intention was to recover composition and printing processes through the manual nature of letterpress, without any use of digital editing processes. Working from concrete heritage and through the study and analysis of artefacts of material culture, this project-driven research seeks to develop mechanisms for the preservation of collective identity and memory. The main objective was to be able to contribute to the preservation of graphic memory and technical knowledge of the past as factors of industrial competitiveness. The design project component was then understood as interventionist, viewing the designer as a producer of meaning and as a non-neutral subject. The intention was to assume a more exploratory and experimental character, moving away from conventional methods of contemporary product development in order to approach a more critical practice. The developed product should not be exclusively analysed on its final formal configuration but, essentially, on the formulation and development of its concept of origin. It was our intention to contribute to the preservation of the brand’s memory and also to the reactivation and maintenance of its letterpress workshop—which is now in danger of disappearing.KeywordsResearch-productionDesign project-based research methodologyLetterpressPackagingLabelling