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...
“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...
La Mercè, La Merced
“Barcelona is the wide and beautiful window, the proud balcony, from which Spaniards look out over that Mediterranean Sea. It is destined, again and always, to be the axis and crossroads of cultures, the path and the means to admirable joint participations.” I quote this statement, signed by V. Domínguez Isla, from the text of...
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...
Filograf, a world of tests
‘When my father founded Filograf. Instituto de Arte Gráfico, in 1947, a dream he had worked towards came true: to have a design studio and graphic design workshop set up in the same place. His broad experience as a studio manager in the publishing house Industrias Gráficas Seix y Barral, from Barcelona, proved that this...
Kaleidoscope 4 Graphics
In 1965, Blume editions published a unique volume – a catalogue of an exhibition – bringing together the work of four “outstanding personalities of Spanish advertising graphic-art” of that time: Gervasio Gallardo, Ricard Giralt Miracle, Joan Pedragosa and Josep Pla-Narbona. With a foreword by Joan Teixidor, cover design and illustration by Pla-Narbona, and printing done...
‘Plaquetas’: Ricard Giralt Miracle
The ‘plaquetes’ were greetings cards created by the ‘Filograf’ studio of designer Ricard Giralt Miracle. Sent out between 1953 and 1989 at christmas, or in the summer, they represent the synthesis of Giralt Miracle’s graphic world; his most personal, and gratifying work. Employing texts by Cervantes, Dante Aligheri, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Maragall or Salvat Papasseit...