This paper focuses on the work done by Sebastião Rodrigues for the Secretariado Nacional da Informação, the public body responsible for the propaganda of the Estado Novo regime. Sebastião Rodrigues created numerous works for this organisation inspired by Portuguese popular art. The inspiration on pop art was a requirement imposed on artists by António Ferro, in 1948, when he inaugurated the Popular Art Museum. From then on, this art became the focus of the plastic artists, architects and decorative artists who worked for the SNI. Sebastião Rodrigues, however, had a different approach to Portuguese popular art from his fellow designers, which meant that his works would soon become a step beyond those previously carried out.

The iconographic elements that served as inspiration to Sebastião Rodrigues would also constitute a precious dictionary of symbols which, despite being related to Portugal, had nothing to do with the stereotype such as, for example, the fisherwoman from Nazaré (nazarena), the cattle herder from Ribatejo (campino) or the typical Douro boat (rabelo). Let us say that the designer took a fresh look at Portuguese tradition helping to broaden the scope of the work of the "SNI brand". Sebastião Rodrigues' visual codes, namely in the work he developed for SNI, which earned him the "Best tourism flyer" award (1960), were some of the characteristic features of Sebastião Rodrigues' visual codes.

In times like those, when global parameters were changing so dramatically and cultural borders were becoming so fluid it would, however, be presumptuous to compile a definitive selection of the Portuguese graphic artists who were inspired by "sebastianesque" practices in the construction of their projects, since the possible references started to come from so many different sources, that it will be more realistic to see this paper as an attempt to understand which were the specific contributions made by Sebastião Rodrigues to Portuguese graphic design namely the work produced for the SNI (Bom, 2018).

The main focus of this paper is to show what characterises the work done by Sebastião Rodrigues for the SNI and why it constitutes an improvement in relation to that developed by his fellow designers in this organisation. With this objective, a research methodology was started, which comprises three separate parts, including: a review of the literature on graphic design produced in Portugal which shows that Sebastião Rodrigues occupies a prominent place in the Portuguese context and always ranks amongst the best, precisely because he  uses a peculiar "graphic language"; a set of qualitative interviews made to his contemporary designers or those who crossed paths with him. Through these it was possible to understand that, apart from his qualities as a graphic designer, Sebastião Rodrigues also stood out as a person, due to his discretion and modesty. This method allowed us to have a more interpretative and constructive approach to the issues; the Case Study, which involved field work, observation of the works, photographic records, and obviously analysis and critical evaluation without however neglecting the context in which the designer's work was created and having in mind that the reality passed onto paper can only be interpreted and/or constructed. In light of these principles, a narrative was built around Sebastião Rodrigues' graphic work which includes, albeit briefly, his life until he emerged as a designer and, above all, the work he develops for the SNI, since this is the object of study of this research.

With a remarkable display of works close to a correct understanding of the evolution of the practice and strategy of international graphic design and a professional behaviour capable of giving rise to a theoretical production on the know-how of this discipline, Sebastião Rodrigues' work also constitutes, due to the extensive variety of alphabet forms it contained, an exceptional starting point for the qualification of the graphic media that the cultural expansion of the 1980s and 1990s would bring about. In addition to the very rich productions designed for the SNI, we should also highlight those for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the publishing houses, the National Museum of Ancient Art in which the motifs also arose from the passions he nurtured for the popular, but also for the erudite, the Portuguese and even the foreigner.

The quintessence of this paper is to bring to light a particular aspect of Sebastião Rodrigues' work which we believe has not yet been sufficiently studied. Having opted for the monograph genre, we try to (de)codify the way in which Sebastião Rodrigues' intervention strategies within the SNI context have been developed. We also seek to make history as opposed to discourses and to contribute to enriching the general knowledge about Portuguese designers and, at the same time, through the reading of the work under analysis, to contribute to a better understanding of the still incipient written history of Portuguese graphic design.