Erbario
Client
Casa Alecrim
Year
2024
Role
Editorial design, illustration direction, print production
Discipline
Editorial
A series of illustrated botanical booklets for a Lisbon herbalist, risograph-printed in sage and vermilion and tucked into every bag of loose tea.
01 — Context
Casa Alecrim has sold loose herbs from the same shop in Campo de Ourique since 1958. The third generation runs it now, and they had a problem every herbalist knows: customers loved the plants but forgot what to do with them once they got home.
They asked for something small to put in each bag. It became Erbario, a series of pocket booklets with one plant family per issue.
02 — Challenge
The booklets had to be cheap enough to give away, good enough to keep and accurate enough for a shop that takes its botany seriously. The owners checked every claim, and cut a few.
There was also the shop itself to respect: wooden drawers, handwritten labels, sixty years of patina. Anything too glossy would have felt like a franchise.
03 — Process
I worked with botanical illustrator Joana Prates, who drew each plant from specimens in the shop, line first, then a single flat color. Every issue is limited to two riso inks, sage and vermilion, so the drawings had to work in overprint.
The layout borrows from old herbarium sheets: the plant on the right page, notes and a short recipe on the left, set in a classic serif with wide margins. We proofed each issue at a riso studio in Marvila and adjusted line weights by hand so they’d survive the grain.
04 — Solution
Erbario is a 24-page A6 booklet, saddle-stitched and printed on recycled cream paper. Each issue covers four plants: how they grow, how to prepare them and when not to use them.
The first three issues cover mints, chamomiles and citrus leaves. Covers carry only the title, a number and a single drawing, so they collect well on a shelf. The shop stacks them by the till like a free newspaper.
05 — Outcome
Casa Alecrim printed 6,000 copies of the first three issues and ran out twice. Repeat purchases of featured herbs rose by a quarter, and the series now sells as a boxed set for visitors.
In numbers
6,000
Copies of the first three issues
+25%
Repeat purchases of featured herbs
2
Riso inks per issue
Credits
Editorial design
Mara Ellis
Illustration
Joana Prates
Risograph printing
Atelier Marvila
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