Pla-Narbona’s ADG
The Graphic Artist Group FAD published its professional intentions on 6 December 1961. “They were honestly and painstakingly dedicated to all professional undertakings and everything related, either directly or indirectly, to culture, aesthetics and graphic teaching”. This paragraph, signed by Pla-Narbona, the first president of the Group (see previous blog entries), appears at the start...
The Poster’s Third Dimension
In 1890 the French painter Maurice Denis asserted: “remember that a painting – before it is a battle horse, a nude model, or some anecdote – is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order”. If this reflection is transferred over to the understanding of a poster, then it is unsurprising...
Pla-Narbona: Letters as partitions
“A chronicle and works by the draughtsman, engraver and sculptor Pla-Narbona” – with no reference to design – is the title of a publication that runs through Pla-Narbona’s career until 1974. As the same long title ran on it elaborated: “works from his beginnings to the present day, compiled, ordered, described and interpreted by Francesc...
Nueva Forma (New Form), architecture and modernity
Nueva Forma (New Form) was an architecture and art magazine that sought to modernise our culture and open out towards major international phenomena. Spanning across the 1960s and 1970s (1966–1975), it had the patronage of the Huarte family, promotors of a significant number of cultural initiatives that included the Pamplona Encounters in 1972 (see previous...
Santamarina, design for Asturias
In 2000 an exhibition was held at the Palacio de Revillagigedo, in the Principality of Asturias, in homage to five graphic designers from Catalonia who were pioneers in their profession and originators of the ADGFAD movement –Domènech, Huguet, Pedragosa, Pla-Narbona and Vellvé–. Its catalogue was signed by Elías+Santamarina. Elías and Santamarina started out together in 1972 in...
Vinyl, gouache, ruling pens, Letraset… the 1960s
“But you have to see him because… he’s a very handsome man!” were the words Lola, the receptionist of the Alhambra Publishing House, blurted out to her extremely busy brother and director of the company, Pepe Zambrana. He interviewed him, of course, and set in motion a long-running relationship between the publishing house, headed by...
Temas españoles (Spanish Matters): Verdú’s covers
The magazine Temas españoles (Spanish Matters) was an instrument for disseminating Francoist thought. The content between its covers enables us to gain an understanding of the ideas that evolved during the dictatorship via a selection of relevant issues and the construction of an idiosyncratic imaginary. The two-tone covers belonging to the first four hundred editions...
Bechtold, “Destino (Destination)” Barcelona
Erwin Bechtold arrived in Barcelona in 1950, although, as Ricard Giralt Miracle wrote in 1993, more than simply arriving in Barcelona, he disembarked in Filograf (see previous posts), the graphic arts studio where this pioneer would print his and his clients’ work. Bechtold and Giralt Miracle crossed paths in careers bound to print and typography,...
Partierra’s Book Covers
As I focused on the mysterious figure of Joaquín Pertierra I discovered the legacy of a restless graphic artist who, while faithful to his era, also looked towards the future and whose work brought more question marks to the surface as I uncovered it. An illustrator by profession and both elusive and sporadic, he developed...
Before Penguin
Edicions Proa, founded in 1928 in Badalona at a time of popular culture and athenaeums, is an exponent of the standard of Catalan publishing in the 1930s that came to the fore by way of an exhibition and the illustrated book: La propera festa del llibre serà de color taronja! Cinquanta anys del rellançament d’Edicions...
The catalogue for mobile types of Filograf
On the cover of this “Selection of printing characters”, five different types already appear: a capital “F” – which he would also use in certain time periods as an image for his “Graphic Art Institute” – a “Spanish thin semi-bold”; his own name made up of English calligraphy characters, one “Hellenic”, and, to conclude, a...
Cruz Novillo and Producers
The first programme coordinated to unify printed and animated graphic art was used for Otto Preminger’s 1955 film The Man with the Golden Arm. The title sequence was designed by Saul Bass and featured an arm that traced the plot of the film: the drug addiction of its main character. The credits for the film...