The Besouro App concept came to life as an academic project for a hypermedia class in college. We got the mission of creating an app for an emerging market in our country and, after a market research, decided to focus on independent publishers.

The idea was to create a social network where publishers could distribute their content in a way that could be either visualized on screen or printed. Zines were originally printed and photocopied for distribution. If someone wanted to distribute it in another region, they would take one copy and photocopy it again. Besouro came to eliminate the distance.

To this day the independent publishers frequently get tied to certain regions, publishing fairs and post mail service to get their work in the hands of the public. The idea of the app is to cut the geographical ties and allow people to network and circulate their work.

Our research showed a growing market that didn’t take many hits from the economic situation Brazil is in. We managed to identify more than 100 small publishers in the state of São Paulo alone. Some of them focus on small market segments: from art essays to feminist HQ’s to band tour photographies. Every niche can be represented by a publisher in this era, however far away they are from book megastores.

The focus of this app was to allow people interested in these niche publications to get them immediately. If you can’t find it to read while drinking a mocha in your favorite bookstore, maybe you can buy and download it from someone on the other side of the country and print it while your coffeemaker does its work.

Besouro is a digital product that takes inspiration on manufactured publications. We decided to take that same inspiration to the brand with a very gestual lettering. We kept the ink splashes, the texture, the strokes and the contrast. It’s imperfect, the way it’s meant to be.

The logo is meant to be applied over beetle pictures - as long as there is contrast - and solid color backgrounds. Inside the app the logo is only meant to be seen when opening the screen or when you take a look at besouro publications - besides that, the focus should be on the publications.

The research allowed us to get to know our users and define our design objectives. From there, we drew the app flow and wireframes. During this phase our biggest obstacle was to build our menus and bars: Bottom bar or top bar? Or both? Which icons should be always shown and which should be inside the menu? Is the feed the home page?

We decided to keep the recommendations, notifications (which alerts the user to new messages, likes and comments) and search buttons always accessible on the top bar. Profile, configurations, messages and publications are accessible through the hamburger menu.

Besouro allows independent producers to get into the digital era of distribution.They have a social network where they can easily publish, share, explore, get exposure and make contacts. It allows you to meet people and projects you wouldn’t be able to with a facebook group and gives you a sort of freedom and the possibility of reaching a public different to an online bookstore.

*All Beetle pictures by Udo Schmidt