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...
Super Veloz Type: the supercalifragilistic typeface (I)
As the final echoes of Bauhaus and the avant-garde movements were sounding, Europe witnessed the emergence of the so-called New Typography, initiated by Jan Tschichold with the publication of his 1928 book of the same name. Adopting a san-serif typeface, rational design, asymmetrical composition and formal construction based on geometry were put forward as 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 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...
“Cua de palla”: Jordi Fornas
From the Catalan expression ‘Qui té la cua de palla s’encén’ (roughly translated as ‘he who holds the end of the straw, burns’) comes the title of the noir crime series ‘La cua de palla’ (The end of the straw) from ‘Edicions 62’, one of the most striking examples of graphic modernism from the 1960’s...
Hispavox covers by Daniel Gil
Perhaps a lesser known (and unjustly recognised period) in the work of Daniel Gil is that of the years 1959 to 1966, when he worked on the visual style of the record label “Hispavox”. As with other areas of culture, the 60’s represented a graphic alarm call within a stagnant Spanish society. Seen today, the...