Quintatinta (translation: fifth ink) is one of my favourite design blogs. Written by Diego Areso, the art director of the Spanish newspaper Público, he reports on some remarkable corners of both the Spanish and international scene. Lovely guy, too.
Anyway, a recent blogpost of his deserves translating:
MediaPunta is a football magazine that is distributed around the main football stadia in Spain on game days. It’s first front page, since which the magazine has just celebrated its fifth birthday and 100 issues, promised to talk about football “from another point of view.” Its front pages are a great example of that viewpoint.
In the anniversary edition, there are four pages containing a compilation of those front pages. The text that accompanies this gallery, written by José Arroyo, the front-cover designer, is worthy of note.
“Ten seconds… is how long you’re going to spend on these four pages. Ten fucking seconds. Less time than it’ll take you to read this. Ten seconds to look through 100 front covers. I took five years to make them. They are a summary of my five years in MediaPunta, so don’t piss me off and please spend a little more time over them, because I worked hard. Perhaps in those five years I haven’t brought up a child, nor amassed a fortune, but I’ve done all of these front covers. And I’m proud. Of them, and to be a part of this utopia. So I’m going to suggest an exchange: my five years for two minutes of your life. Spend a few seconds on each cover, look at them with affection, slowly, even if you have to squint, and perhaps you’ll surprise yourself as you discover Obama lifting the World Cup, a head filled with turf (not sawdust), a treasure map… A football magazine? Yes, but from another point of view.”
Some of the covers are better than others, but all are worth a look over at Quintatinta. Won’t somebody think of Señor Arroyo’s nonexistent children?
