Some letters and a design
Ana de Tord Figueras, 1986.
As the author of the SANTA & COLE logotype, I have been asked — not without some risk — to lay out the more or less tortuous paths that led me to a particular image with which to represent the idea-entity-product of the new company being formed. What follows is my attempt at an answer:
The symbol
1 • The eyes, sight, the gaze. An emphasis on perception, on the creative intelligence of the one who looks. The selection criterion of SANTA & COLE. But also, through the gaze, the thing seen: the object as subject of design.
2 • The spectacles, a mediation that restores sharpness to the blunt edges of things. A technology of the modern age, and at the same time a designed object. Design framing its own perception. SANTA & COLE thinks through the polished lenses of design.
3 • It does not merely reveal the object: the gaze, frontal and direct, looks back at the subject, draws in the passer-by, signals the beginning of a personal relationship. SANTA & COLE invites its interlocutor to share in the act of looking at things.
The typography
A • SANTA & COLE in classical typeface, for a company of quality rooted in tradition. A mischievous serif plays with risk — fitting for a young team.
B • EDICIONES DE DISEÑO in a contemporary, functional, impersonal typeface that prompts one to think of the efficient workings of the edition-production-commercialisation cycle.
C • The typographic contrast draws a company that is solid yet dynamic, grounded in history while opening doors to the imagination.
The combination of symbol and typography works. It can be enlarged or reduced without loss of effectiveness or proportion. It is mnemonic, easily understood (after the initial surprise) and clearly identifiable. It brings together heterogeneous elements to create a style of its own that avoids the obsolescence which so often haunts fashion, holding up well against the passage of time. A stern emblem with an Anglo-Saxon touch, dynamic and slightly eccentric.
A rationalist, almost quantitative analysis of the factors that make up an image would lead us toward the Swiss tradition in graphic design — which I respect and admire — toward that aseptic precision, as lucid as it is mechanical. But I prefer to sell my soul to the devil of intuition and chance. That the SANTA & COLE logotype should refer not only to the company’s philosophy but also to the people who form the core of the team is a curious fact. On one side, the spectacles worn by Javier Nieto Santa (the symbol). On the other, the English tradition on the maternal side of Gabriel Ordeig Cole (the typography). Fortunate coincidence? Happy intuition? In any case, a healthy alliance.