Celestino Piatti

Celestino Piatti ( born January 5, 1922 in Wangen, Canton Zurich, † 17 December 2007 Duggingen, Canton of Basel-Land ) was a Swiss graphic artist, painter and book designer.

Life

The son of a stonemason and a Ticino Zurich farmer's daughter grew up in Dietlikon, attended evening classes in 1937 at Ernst and Max Gubler at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich from 1938 to 1942 and learned the craft of graphic artist in the Offizin Gebrüder Fretz. In 1945 he was in the recruit school and active service. From 1945 to the end of 1947 Piatti worked in Fritz Bühler's graphic design studio in Basel. In 1946 he married the graphic designer Marianne Stricker, with whom he had three children. Since 1948 he worked as a freelance graphic designer until 1966 in Riehen near Basel and thereafter until his death in Basel and in Duggingen. In 1969 he married the journalist Ursula Huber and gets with her two children.

Work

First international successes he achieved as a designer of posters. Even with his first poster that he designed in 1948 for the Basel discount brand BKG league, he won a prize. Of his more than 500 artists, many posters were awarded prizes. In 1960 he presented together with Hans Erni, Alfred Pauletto, Hugo Wetli and Kurt Wirth about graphic artist as a painter from. In 1964, his works at the documenta III in Kassel in the Department graphics were shown.

Particularly well known Piatti made ​​his work for the Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag ( dtv ), whose books since the founding of the publisher almost exclusively Piatti designed from 1961 to the mid-1990s. In addition to the cover design he was responsible for typography, Signet, letterheads, advertisements and posters, so that he could create a uniform corporate identity. The distinctive, uniformly white dtv volumes with characteristic illustrations Piatti seen as a milestone elegant and sophisticated art book in paperback. Its design had until then mainly based on the individual title and was able to barely get a brand awareness for all the pocket book series about.

Overall Piatti created over 6300 book covers, picture books, and book illustrations; the previous total circulation of books designed by him is in excess of 200 million copies. In addition to posters and books, his works also include free printmaking ( in lithography, woodcut and linocut ), stamps (as the most famous of those on the anniversary "100 Years of the Gotthard Railway " applies ), glass paintings, murals and other paintings, as well as ceramics and sculptures.

A theme that runs through all his work, is the owl who wakes up as a lucky charm or a harbinger of death, also known as a symbol of wisdom many associations. 1992 Piatti noticed in a magazine: You can draw the owl a thousand times, to her secret does not approach you.

After the Piatti donated by dtv Celestino Piatti award is named for book illustration.