ESC – Enter Spanish Creativity, edited by CLA-SE (Amazon USA UK).
Been lazy with the book reviews this month so i’m slowing going back to business with an easy one.
Publishers Actar says: Every system needs an escape valve, a decompression mechanism. In professional graphic design, this escape device is more than the ‘escape’ (esc) on a keyboard; it is the visual seduction by new and experimental formulas. This is the defining concept of emergent Spanish design today. Spain has become an international laboratory where creators from all over the planet retro-nourish and influence one another.
Works by Basedesign, Ipsum Planet, Enric Jardí, Paco Bascuñán, among many others.
I love Spain. They make my favourite food (tortilla de patatas), the most wonderful landscapes, some of my favourite activists (list is too long) and architects (or both as in the case of Santiago Cirugeda), some of the smartest blogs in my rss readers (again, way too long but you can try this one), etc. As my Italian (and slightly annoyed) boyfriend would tell you i could go on for hours.
Design from the latest collection of José Miró (Pasarela Cibeles)
Maybe the most appealing characteristic of Spain is that while visiting it you keep on switching from the utterly ridiculold-fashioned to the very edgy. ESC has a lot of the latter and nothing of the former.
The design studios selected in ESC are ordered alphabetically. Each designer showcases up to 4 works and has a little bubble space to explain what the work is about and leave their website url for more if affinities. Easy, fuss-free, fast and delightful. Most of the designers are based in Barcelona though, does that catalano-centrism really reflect the state of graphic design in Spain?
Here’s my pick:
max-o-matic. I have spent what? 40? 60 minutes? on his website, going from one image to the other and doing it a second time just for the pleasure.
Un mundo feliz for the 5th anniversary of Guantanamo detention camp (almost as great as those Agent Provocateur Fair Trial My Arse pants):
Spy. For their “Interventions” and re-use of street furniture.
Street Wars
Gregori Saavedra. I still have to master the art of navigating his b&w website but whatever…
Pop-up wedding invitations hand-made by Fundición Gráfica:
Oh! Look! i made a little trailer for you:
A last one that made me happy. Twopoints (who designed the very swanky book Super Holland Design) made a poster explaining how to cook a real “Tortilla de patata”.
