Graphic Journey Blog

Saul Bass:Mini masterpieces

This is one of my favourite Saul Bass creations. For Otto Preminger's Bonjour Tristesse 1958. And here you'll find a selection of his titles.

 

 

Things I like...

While in Waterstone's yesterday, scanning a rather depressing sea of mediocrity, I alighted on this and thought it rather good.

Created and designed by Marion de Man and Suzanne Dean for Jonathan Cape.

Things I like...

While in Waterstone's yesterday, scanning a rather depressing sea of mediocrity, I alighted on this and thought it rather good.

Created and designed by Marion de Man and Suzanne Dean for Jonathan Cape.

Things I like...

Design by Alan Aldridge, photograph by Dennis Rolfe 1966.

Two Alan Aldridge covers during his time as fiction art director of Penguin Books when he dispensed with Romek Marber's classic 1961 grid, much to the horror of Sir Allen Lane at the time.

Romek Marber's original Penguin cover grid system 1961.

But as Dylan said back then, "The Times They Are A-Changin'". And they did.

1966 Designed and illustrated by Alan Aldridge1968.

More on Alan Aldridge here.

Félix Beltrán & Pepe Cruz Novillo: Known unknowns

The cover of Confluencias.

The soon to be published Confluencias is a compact, densely illustrated book featuring the work of two key Spanish/Cuban graphic designers: Félix Beltrán and Pepe Cruz Novillo.

Both are now in their late 70s and have been practising for six decades. They stem from that disciplined period of the late 1950s when Swiss modernism was king. 

A style where everything had a place and there was a place for everything through the carefully structured grid system.

But all of that painstaking, straitjacketed work was cast aside in the late 1960s, when a free-spirited ethos swept America and the UK, having a considerable influence on the rest of the world. 

But both Félix Beltrán and Pepe Cruz Novillo continued to stay faithful to the Swiss discipline that they felt most comfortable with, deviating little over their respective working lives. 

Here I feature just a fraction of their respective output from the 1950s to the 2000s.

Cruz Roja Suiza Asistencia social, 1958 Félix Beltrán

Símbolo de Veterinaria Ministerio de Educación, 1969 Félix Beltrán

Font Romeu Restaurant, 1971 Cruz Novillo

Bolín Fábrica de bolígrafos, 1964 Cruz Novillo

Hernández Fotomecánica, 1985 Félix Beltrán

Cartel de solidaridad Departamento de Orientación Revolucionaria, 1971 Félix Beltrán

Ana y los Lobos Cartel, 1973 Cruz Novillo

Barnicuba, 1962 Félix Beltrán

Barnicuba Portada de folleto, 1962 Félix Beltrán

 

Paquexpres Renfe Trenes de reparto de paquetería, 1990 Cruz Novillo

Atlantis Urbanización en la costa, 1976 Cruz Novillo

Petróleo Ahorro de electricidad» Carteles, 1968 Félix Beltrán

Los Desafíos Cartel, 1969 Cruz Novillo

Circo, 2008 Cruz Novillo

American Publisher Portada de libro, 1958 Félix Beltrán

Le Terrier Cartel, 1968 Cruz Novillo

Símbolo de Veterinaria Ministerio de Educación, 1969 Félix Beltrán

Banco Cooperativo 1990 Cruz Novillo

Cuenca 2016 XX aniversario de la Declaración de Ciudad Patrimonio de la Humanidad Pepe Cruz/Cruz Novillo

Ruperto de Nola Restaurante, 1971 Cruz Novillo

Mamá cumple 100 años Carteles, 1979 Cruz Novillo

Instituto Cubano del Petróleo Símbolo, 1967 Félix Beltrán

Fósforos del Pirineo El Circo, 1968 Cruz Novillo+Olmos

Sala Torres García Casa de América, 2016

The book Confluencias is an analytical study of Beltrán’s and Novello’s work, researched and collated by a group of designers and academics, principally Sonia Díaz, Gabriel Martínez and Julio Ramón, to bring a greater awareness of these two Spanish/Cuban graphic designers. 

It will be published by Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha.

For more information, click HERE.