A Light Within
Alice Alves
For the Project course, I developed an editorial visual essay exploring a personal, conceptual theme through the relationship between image, text and layout. Starting from a reflection on how we lose the ability to be surprised, the project centers on faith, transformation and the art of paying attention.
I built a visual narrative structured as a journey from darkness to clarity, through a sequence of photographs, text and light. A thread of light is born in the book’s spine and spreads across the pages, progressively revealing words, images and meaning. It is not only a symbol but the structuring principle of the publication — every other element grows from it — leading the reader from contemplation to action, from looking inward to looking outward. The project was made in Adobe InDesign, with occasional use of Illustrator, using images gathered online to build the intended imagery.
Conceptually, the publication does not attempt to explain faith as doctrine but to explore it as experience — one that begins with attention and ends in encounter. Formally, using light as the pagination’s guiding thread shows how a single visual element can work at once as metaphor and as the structural system of a book, promoting coherence between concept, narrative and graphic form.
Imprint / Technical Rider:
Year: 2026
Dimensions: 125 × 140 mm; 120 pages
Materials: Thin paper, chosen with the printer to make the book easy to leaf through.
Production and finishing: Machine-sewn (Mr. Carvalho).
Resources and credits: Photographs gathered from the internet.
Curricular Unit:
Project (1st year)
Supervising Professor:
Eduardo Aires
Keywords: Light, Transformation, Editorial, Contemplation
See this project in the Material Archive interactive archive →