So it happened that Don Quixote, walking down a street, raised his eyes and saw written on a door, in large letters: “Books are printed here,” which made him very happy, because until then he had not seen any printing press and he wanted to know what it was like. He went inside, with all his entourage, and saw printing in one part, correcting in another, composing in this, editing in that, and finally all that machinery that is displayed in the large printing houses.
The charm of Quixote in discovering the print of Sebastián de Cormellas, in Calle del Call in Barcelona, will be authentic. It would be for anyone to have the opportunity to travel to the early 17th century and see what it’s like in the books. The printer, in fact, was a home orchestra: his activity did not only concern printing, but also translation, correction, editing and, in many cases, all marketing.
Since the keys have been plogut molt, but in Barcelona they only have deixat de fer libres. “If there is a publishing industry, it means that there is editorial design,” says Enric Jardí, graphic designer and curator.The books of Barcelona. Design and editionan unprecedented exhibition that will open on November 28 at the MUSA museum in Guadalajara, Mexico, and will be available at the DHub in Barcelona next spring. Promoted by the Design Museum-DHub and the ICUB, this editorial design tour of Barcelona is part of a total of four exhibitions that will travel to the Guadalajara International Book Fair, which will present the Catalan capital as an invited city. “Barcelona’s publishing industry is not only dominant in Spain. It also has a strong presence in Latin America. If you go to a bookstore in Xile or Mexico, you will see that there are many books from Barcelona, from publishers here, you will recognize them immediately. This is what we will show again. Barcelona can fer-ho, other cities can’t,” says Jardí.
The books – and more specifically the six covers – are the driving force of an exhibition with an educational vocation that begins with the arrival of the printer in Barcelona and ends with an example of current editorial planning. “The cover hides the book, not only protects it, but identifies it, giving it a visual entity and making it a reality. It is made possible in many ways: with typography, illustration, photography… Each editorial and each designer uses its different strategies,” continues Jardí, who worked with the graphic arts foundation of the Design Museum-DHub and in close collaboration with Isabel Cendoya, curator of graphic design of that institution. Some things have emerged from the archive that date back to the 17th century, as books were a precious object that was finished and therefore it was difficult to bind more or less luxuriously. There are also books with illustrated covers, including one by Lluís Domènech i Montaner imbued with the modernist aesthetic of the early 20th century, or books with cardboard covers and simple typography, with the collection published by Llibreria Catalunya, highly appreciated in every year and thirty years.
“We also included collections that showed a coherence that made them very recognisable,” says Cendoya, who cites examples from the 1960s and 1970s with “La Cua de Palla” from Edicions 62, “Panorama de Narrativas” from Anagrama (with its characteristic pale groc), “Áncora y Delfín” from Destino… The current situation is represented in giant books like Planeta and Penguin, but also in independent publishers like Blackie Books and Libri del Kultrum. “The criterion is the design, but not necessarily the basic design, which is not a LAUS award, but the representative one, the one that helps explain a story,” insists Jardí. A story that also delves into the technical aspects of the book – what is a plec?, how does the computer work?, who interprets color? – and which voluntarily claims the book as a design object involving the work of many professionals, just as the Quixote will be discovered at the Cormellas typography. “I’m sure that after this exhibition we will take a look at the books we brought home to other countries,” concluded Cendoya, after announcing that, once the Mexican tour is over, it will be released in Barcelona.
Three more exhibitions on the road
The other unprecedented exhibition that travels to Guadalajara, in this case to the Cabañas Museum, is Vindran gives them gifts. 150 years of rain along the streets of Barcelonaa poetic and political journey in the public space of over a hundred artists and writers, curated by Mita Casacuberta, Ingrid Guardiola and Anna Maria Iglesia, and which can be seen after the Museu d’Història de Catalunya. The Cabosanroque installations on the figures of Mercè Rodoreda, Joan Brossa and Jacint Verdager are also recovered in this device. Me at the MUSA museum, more thanThe free streets of BarcelonaYou’ll also be able to visit Espai Oníric, an immersive cubby about Catalan digital creativity that will premiere at Sónar in 2024.
