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...
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...
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...
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...
Catalan activist design by Pilar Villuendas
“Looking over the images produced throughout these years goes above and beyond a possible analysis of their graphic values to become a statement of the small daily history of Barcelona.” Pilar Villuendas set up her studio in the mid 1970s. Looking through the designs compiled in this recently published book “Barcelona, Urban Iconography in Transition”,...
The El Corte Inglés pennant
I remember the morning I began working as Art Director in the Publicity Department of El Corte Inglés as if it were yesterday. I was sneaking between drawing tables to introduce myself to my new Creative Director when an older man – white hair, smoking a cigar – asked me if I knew how to...
Culleré’s visual world
Pioneer is a polysemous word. It can signify the pioneer of an epoch, a brand new field, a precise style, a particular attititude or a different country. Albert Culleré -a dedicated follower of this blog- is a pioneer in several aspects of graphic design. As Joan Costa wrote in the following text, the specific fields...
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...
Amador Garrell: local design
The graphic designer and printer Amador Garrell came from a long line of graphic arts professionals who were known for their experimental endeavours within the field. He began his career as a signwriter and cartoonist for the Catalan magazine “La Gralla”. In 1954, after completing his first few jobs in Barcelona, he returned to his...
Juan Toribio’s Trains
In 1971 Renfe who monopolised rail transport in Spain, launched the foundations for a plan of action to position the train as an essential and unifying element in the country’s transport development. Renfe and its GID (cabinet of information and diffusion) hired the advertising agency Arce & Potti and together they created the appropriate communication strategies and undertook the...
Pla-Narbona’s Cosmo(s)
Pla-Narbona was “entrusted with the responsibility of creating the visual personality” of the Spanish company Industrias Cosmo, as can be read in his magnificent and original Manual of Corporate Identity edited in 1969. This manual in its first part consisted of texts written by Will Burtin, Daniel Giralt-Miracle and the very Pla-Narbona, titled “Reflections on...