Portugal’s south is among Europe's most tourist-saturated coastlines. Alquimia proposed something else: a cultural tourism programme built around territory, traditional knowledge, and craft, organised around the four classical elements.

A partnership programme of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture with Oficina Bartolomeu dos Santos, Alquimia brought together traditional knowledge and craft practices from Portugal’s south (ceramics, gastronomy, botany, printmaking, marine biology) organised into four three-day programmes, each anchored in one alchemical element.

Alchemy is a framework for translating base matter into something higher: raw material turns into craft, territory into culture, knowledge into experience. The identity draws from that tradition. The wordmark splits across four parts, each separated by the classical alchemical symbol for its element. The colour system of deep greens, ochres, and burnt oranges evokes the atmosphere of soil, fire, and transformation. The texture grounds the visual language in the handmade.

Client   Oficina Bartolomeu dos Santos
Category   Visual identity
Year   2017
Format   Wordmark, poster, program