The early 1900s were a very promising time – with Antoni Utrillo and Francisco de Cidon producing innovative works of graphic design around the same time that Gaudi was slaving over his Art Nouveau masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona.
In 1929, Barcelona hosted the International Design Exhibition, and introduced Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair to the world. Unfortunately the Spanish civil war put the growth of the design industry on a temporary hiatus, with many designers going into exile.
They eventually came back, though, and in 1946 an article in the clandestine review Ariel called for a place to be found in culture for ‘the washbasin, the fork, the hat, and the bottle.’ A decade later, the Industrial Design Institute of Barcelona (IDIB) was founded.
Arguably, Spain’s modern design era began around 1974, when the Barcelona Design Centre (BCD) was established amid a burst of enthusiasm for design that was largely sustained into the 1980s – a decade which saw, among other things, Javier Mariscal’s iconic Duplex stool.
In 1992, Spain hosted both the Barcelona Olympics and the World’s Fair in Seville. Design – and in particular graphic design – boomed once more.
Today, Barcelona is still buzzing with creativity. It hosted a Year of Design in 2003, and in 2005 a touring exhibition – 300% Spanish Design – which showed off a century of posters, chairs and lamps to the world.
The recent expansion of Spanish banks and the launch of new telecommunications companies has created a demand for designers specialising in brand identity, and an increasing number of businesses have begun to develop their own internal industrial design teams.
Graphic design is as important now as it was in the early years of the last century, with hundreds of designers working to meet the needs of the world’s largest Spanish language publishing industry.
From bookshelves to clothes rails, the work of Spanish designers can be found on high-streets around the world, too, thanks to the clothing chain Zara.
Much progress has been made in recent years, but not everyone feels the same sense of optimism about the current state of Spanish design. Rachel Pelta of Visual magazine has lamented the fact that design in Spain is not taken seriously enough as a profession, saying: ‘design is still not considered as a fundamental part of competitiveness, and is looked at as an artistic activity incompatible with enterprise management.’
Described as ‘the Spanish state agency for the development of design and innovation,’ the DDI is a state-financed design organisation established to promote awareness of design, and the role that design can play in boosting competitiveness in business.
Spain’s local and regional authorities also have their own design promotion bodies, the oldest of which is the Barcelona Centre de Disseny Foundation, created in 1973. Over the years, the foundation has swung between a mix of government funding and privately generated income. Today its main financers are the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, the Catalan Department of Industry, the City Council and the Ministry of Industry Commerce and Tourism.
Other major membership organisations in the sector include ADG-FAD and ADI-FAD. The first is the Association of Art Directors and Graphic Designers, founded in 1961, and the second the Industrial Design for Development of Decorative Arts Association, founded in 1960. ADG-FAD has around 600 members, and hosts a prestigious annual competition, the Laus award.
The 1,100 Madrid-based companies within the design sector employ a total of 5,000 people, 2,500 of whom are designers, and generate sales of around €700m.
65% of those companies have an average annual turnover of less than €300,000, while 10.5% turn over more than €900,000 per year. Average annual sales figures per company are €635,000, or €140,000 per employee per year.
The most significant client base for design services is the private sector, which generates 55.5% of sales; individuals make up 28.7% of the total. Public bodies represent 6.9% of the sector’s overall sales, and they tend to use the larger design companies.
Catalonia, the other major design hub in Spain, is home to 1,607 design businesses, making up 37.9% of the national design sector.
(Source for all figures: DDI)
EINA is a Barcelona-based institution established in 1967, which teaches product design, graphic design, and interior design.
For more information, visit www.eina.edu
Barcelona is also home to the slightly older Elisava design school, which opened in 1961.
For more information, visit www.elisava.net
Instituto Europeo di Design has campuses in various countries and cities, including both Madrid and Barcelona. It offers various courses of different lengths, from summer courses to three-year degrees.
For more information, visit www.ied.edu
Madrid is notable for la Escuela de Arte 12, a publicly-funded industrial design school in Madrid; Escuela de Arte 10, a graphic design school; and Escuela de Arte 4, which specialises in interior design.
For more information, visit www.arte12.es; www.artediez.es; www.arte4.net
Collegi Professional de Disseny Grafic de Catalunya is a graphic design college in Barcelona, initially set up by the ADG-FAD professional body.
For more information, visit www.dissenygrafic.org
Valencia, creative hub for a new generation of Spanish designers, is home to both the EASD School and the Escuela Técnica de Ingeniería del Diseño.
For more information, visit www.easdvalencia.com; www.etsid.upv.es
DDI
www.ddi.es
National design promotion body, based in Madrid
Barcelona Design Centre
www.bcd.es
Design promotion centre for Barcelona and Catalonia. Website includes exhaustive directory of design-related links
ADG-FAD
www.adg-fad.org
Trade body for the industrial design sector
ADI-FAD
www.adifad.org
Trade body for decorative arts sector
Visual
www.visual.gi
Design magazine, published six times a year
d[x]i
www.dximagazine.com
Quarterly design magazine
Premios Nacionales de Diseno
www.premiosnacionalesdediseno.com
Annual national design prize
Experimenta
www.experimenta.es
Design magazine