The challenge
To illustrate the fight for press freedom on World Press Freedom Day – a theme still powerful in Portugal, where newspapers once lived under the “Blue Pencil,” a symbol of censorship.
The brief
Create an editorial illustration for the front page of Gazeta das Caldas, a century-old local newspaper. The work had to recall the years when news were cut out by the notorious Blue Pencil.
Gazeta das Caldas, like all the other newspapers in Portugal, was under the surveillance of the authoritarian regime from 1925 until 1974.
During the dictatorship, newspapers were reviewed by a police department. Risky stories were crossed out with a blue pencil. These items had to be removed or replaced. When there was no time to do so, mirror text was printed over the censored parts to make it unreadable.
The idea
I chose to reinterpret the act of censorship itself, turning the Blue Pencil into a character and a central visual metaphor of the illustration.
Censorship is not depiced as an absence, but as a omnipotent presence. The erased words and the blue lines become part of the image.
The illustration depicts an ordinary day in the life of a journalist during the dictatorship – a man constantly watched by the regime. The Blue pencil peers through the window, symbolising the ever-present eye of censorship. On the side of his desk is hidden a recorder, another instrument of surveillance and control. From the wall, an all-seeing eye observes him — a subtle nod to the idea of the Big Brother. Even the signature plays along: a word twist between visado (“reviewed”) and visitado (“visited by censorship”).
What I delivered
Concept, illustration, and execution for the cover artwork.
What it became
The illustration was featured on the front page of Gazeta das Caldas’ special World Press Freedom Day edition.
