Celestino Piatti

Background

Piatti was born in Wangen-Brüttisellen, the son of a Ticino stonemason and a Zurich farmer"s daughter. He grew up in Dietlikon, near Zürich.

Career

Between 1945 and the end of 1948 he worked in the studio of Fritz Bühler in Basel. From 1948 he had his own graphic design studio. In 1966 he settled in Duggingen near Basel, where he lived until his death.

His first international success came as a designer of posters.

In 1961 Piatti became the designer for the newly founded Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (dtv) of Munich. As well as their cover designs, Piatti was responsible for the company"s typography, signets, letterheads, advertisements and posters, giving the DTV catalogue a uniform identity which combined the International Typographic Style with quirky illustration.

His distinctive covers used the sans-serif Akzidenz-Grotesk typeface in black against a white background. From 1961, beginning with Heinrich Böll"s Irisches Tagebuch, to 1991, he designed almost all of DTV"s publications, a total of more than 6,300 titles.

In 1987, the DTV produced a retrospective book about Piatti, entitled Celestino Piatti, Meister des graphischen Sinnbilds.

A motif that runs through his entire work, is the owl, as a messenger of good luck or misfortune, or as a symbol of wisdom. In 1992 Piatti told a magazine: "You can draw an owl a thousand times, and never find out its secret". 30 of Piatti"s 500 posters were awarded "Best Swiss poster of the Year".

In 1971 Piatti was commissioned by the American Congress of Racial Equality (Congress of Racial Equality) to design a 39" x 45" poster to promote the closed circuit viewing at the State Armoury in Harlem of the March 8 Muhammad Ali versus

Joe Frazier fight at Madison Square Garden. lieutenant features Ali"s face as a boxing glove with eyes at the center and globe in a mouth.

Achievements

• He was a popular illustrator of children"s books and achieved international success as a designer for Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (DTV). He designed more than five hundred, many of which won prizes. In 1964 his work was included in the graphic design section of documenta III in Kassel,In 1975 Piatti won a Book of The Caldecott Medal "The Little Crayfish".

Works

More photos

• book

  • Celestino Piatti: The Happy Owls

    (Great vintage children"s book!)

  • The Happy Owls
  • The happy owls.
  • The Happy Owls by Celestino Piatti (2013-05-01)

Connections

teacher:

Max Gubler