The FAD stars (Foment de les Arts i del Disseny – Catalan design association)
In December 1963 each member of the ADG/FAD (graphic design and communication branch of this design association) designed a star for their Christmas greeting. The card was designed by Tomás Vellvé and printed by Industrias Gráficas Casamajó, it is a piece of great beauty and with a delicate choice of materials on which it was printed.
Around 1950, the first professional groups emerge in Spain: Unión de Empresas de Publicidad (Advertising Companies Union) in Madrid in 1946, the Club de la Publicidad del FAD (FAD Advertising Club) in 1947, the Grup R (architects group) in 1951 or the Círculo de Publicidad de Barcelona (Barcelona Advertising Circle) in 1952.
Grafistas Agrupación FAD (FAD’s graphics group), as the ADG/FAD was originally called, claimed to “began their professional purposes” on the 6th of December 1961 in Barcelona, with the participation of a small number of “graphic artists.” Two years later the group had 24 designers.
Pla-Narbona, its first President, stated that the Grafistas Agrupación FAD intended to “grow and unite professionals who share and use the persuasive language of the image”.
Art critic Joan Perucho from the magazine “Destino” (Destination) wrote in the 1963 issue published by members: “Barcelona has an admirable group of internationally renowned designers, integrated in the Grafistas FAD, an entity that ensures the purity of our graphic creations. Each of these designers have their own special and distinctive feature”. Words that prove to be unequivocally correct when you see the collection of Christmas stars gathered in this “post”.