The current dissertation is a research about the visual constructio n of print Brazilian newspapers in the period previous to the systematization of design teaching in the country and its legitimization as a field of knowledge. For the stated purpose it has been chosen as a focus of study the daily newspaper Jornal do Brasil, which was founded in 1891, still in circulation nowadays. Some studies have been done about the so important and well known graphic reformulation which it went through at the end of the 1950´s, however there is no investigation about the visual construction in the previous period; therefore it has been defined as time line the first half of the 20th Century. The first chapter reports the trajectory of Jornal do Brasil during the studied period, and how the innumerous events that influenced the company and the country altered the visual presentation of its pages. The second chapter mentions technological advances, the type of technology used by Jornal do Brasil, and how modernization of its graphic park made innovation possible. Its content is approached in the third chapter, where it is described which sections were published and their peculiarities. The fourth chapter presents an overview of the behavior of the main daily Brazilian newspapers at the beginning of the 20th Century, which serves as an object of comparison to Jornal do Brasil. The current work investigates the trajectory and visual presentation of the following newspapers : Jornal do Comércio, Gazeta de Notícias, O País, Correio da Manhã e O Estado de São Paulo.