Exhibitions in Darro
In 1958, Francisco Muñoz Cabrero and Fernando Alonso Martínez founded DARRO, a Spanish furniture company for which the architects Miguel Fisac, Javier Carvajal, Fernando Ramón Moliner, José Antonio Coderch, Equipo 57 and Javier Feduchi, among others, designed. Darro was located in a commercial premises in the Salamanca neighbourhood of Madrid which, in addition to having...
Oh, no! Singers!
In this blog we have previously presented designs for album covers made by pioneers like the ones that Daniel Gil produced for Hispavox in his previous stage to Alianza Editorial (see previous post). The long play vinyl record format, due to its dimensions (31×31 centimetres), and its wide diffusion, constituted an ideal “canvas” for the...
The sun that rose for all
Although the monograph El sol para todos, which the designer Alberto Corazón prepared for the disappeared Banco Urquijo, was published in 1979, its elaboration process lasted for over five years. As the subtitle of the book points out, it was an “analysis of the commercial iconography of Madrid”. Similar initiatives are currently being carried out...
Josep Queralt, master classes
In December 2004, a show opened at the Museum of Valls, birthplace of Josep Queralt (1910–1993), curated by Santi Barjau and Jordi Paris. It presented works produced by this pioneer for local businesses and industry, including Farmacia Muret, Porcelanas Isard, and the iron and steel manufacturer, agricultural cooperative and printing house Moncunill. In the introductory...
Shouting at the wall
Just a few months ago, the publication Crits a la paret i poemes visuals. Josep Pla-Narbona. Cartells 1947-2004, coordinated by the recently departed Professor Anna Calvera, was presented at the Barcelona Design Museum. In the files in my study, I still have the preparatory dossier in Catalan for this book, with a different working title...
Summer designs
The plaquettes were small publications, generally in the form of a notebook, which Ricard Giralt Miracle (see earlier post) sent to his clients and friends as Christmas greetings or notifications of the summer holiday period during which the pioneer closed his workshop Filograf (see earlier post). As Giralt Miracle himself stated about the plaquettes, they ‘have been the...
Echeverría and professional integrity
Miguel Ángel Echeverría is one of the foremost pioneers of design in Spain whose extensive international career and broad experience of creating and implementing corporate identity programmes have never quite received the kudos and recognition they deserve. Echeverría, who founded the company Gabinete Técnico Echeverría, maintains that you cannot design a visual identity and then ignore...
“Christmas” pioneers
In 1953, Producciones Editoriales del Nordeste, PEN, published in its collection Books of the Unicorn, a small text book by Joan Josep Tharrats in which he made a tour of Christmas greetings in the form of postcards, Christmas cards, keepsakes, etc. From the miniatures of the Books of Hours to illustrations by Saul Steinberg, José...
The Poster in Asturias
It is inspiring to see how in recent years a proliferation of initiatives have materialized in the form of monographic books or exhibitions that are serving to recover and value the work of the pioneers of Spanish graphic design. Virtually all the graphic artists that appeared in the book “Pioneers” in 2007, years later are...
Poza at Grupo 13
Juan Poza Tártalo cites how the collaboration with Federico Ribas and his admiration for the works of Rafael de Penagos and Bartolozzi gave rise to his interest in the poster. In the years that saw the poster become the showpiece of visual communication, Poza would produce more than three hundred, many winning awards in the...
“Vellvé”, the first Iberian “sans serif”
In November 1971 the Fundición Tipográfica Neufville (Neufville Type Foundry) presented the “Vellvé” alphabet designed by graphic artist Tomás Vellvé Mengual at an annual event organised by FAD. The presentation resulted in a complete font family of mobile typefaces in body text 24 and won the Laus Award as one of the three best graphic...
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...