Categories: Digital Printing

A Boom in Brazil

Brazil’s economy is booming, and more Brazilians than ever possess cellphones, automobiles and disposable cash. This prosperity necessitates signs.

Brazil’s mega-city, São Paulo, with an estimated population of more than 18 million, is literally bursting with traffic, commerce and commercial signage of all types. Electric signs, such as cabinet signs and channel-letters, abound, but electronic digital signage and spectaculars are practically nonexistent.

I searched high and low for São Paulo’s “Times Square,” but it doesn’t exist. I did find a complex mixture of cutting-edge, large-format graphics and low-tech, old-world wayfinding graphics. The modern flair and typographic precision of the city’s handpainted signs could compete with those of any country.

The images in this gallery represent what I think is the beginning of a social transformation that could revolutionize the signage industry in this sub-equatorial, awakening powerhouse.

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Jeff Russ

Jeff Russ is a content studio manager for SmartWork Media and was the senior art director of Signs of the Times from 1996-2021. A graphic designer and illustrator with an interest in sign design and sign history, Jeff documents important, interesting and notable design trends in the sign industry as a contributor to Signs of the Times. He has written dozens of features for Signs, and his column, Design Matters, was published for more than a decade.