Artigo:

The principal focus of the doctoral thesis "Standards and Variations: Graphic Arts at Livraria José Olympio Editora, 1932-1962", is José Olympio’s publishing house, one of the most studied Brazilian publishers. The main reference found in research on the number of works published by JO, is the survey presented by Laurence Hallewell in O Livro no Brasil (Hallewell, 1985; 2012), used and cited in later studies. Hallewell's research data, however, covers only the period from 1932 to 1950, and no additional source comprehending the entire time frame of the thesis could be found. Furthermore, as the work progressed, inconsistencies in Hallewell's numbers could be noticed, which could lead to misunderstandings. Despite not being the original focus of this thesis and despite inherent difficulties, a new survey of all the works published by José Olympio in its first thirty years of editorial production (1932-1962) was accomplished. To this end, information on J.O. published books collected during the research, previously scattered in several different listings, were standardised in a single dataset and complemented with bibliographic records obtained in the Brazilian National Library’s database. In addition to collecting data comparable to Hallewell’s database, the resulting survey also compiles information on the graphic aspects of the studied books. As a result, the systematisation of this information contributed to a quantitative analysis of the publisher's catalogue, casting attention to aspects not previously considered, such as the graphic characteristics of the covers (fig. 1). The standardised information also made it possible to quantify the production of both the graphic artists hired to design the covers, and the one of the publishing house as a whole, providing further essential data for the doctoral research.