CELESTINO PIATTI, 1922 – 2007, is probably best known for his bookcovers. the number of printed copies for which he provided layout, typography and illustration, is over 200 million. PIATTI was born in the swiss countryside and got his art-education in zurich. since 1948 working as agraphic designer he became particularly famous for his work for DEUTSCHER TASCHENBUCH VERLAG dtv, whose paperbacks were designed by him almost exclusively since the establishment of the publishing house in 1960 until the 1990s. beside the covers he was responsible for typography, logo-design, letterheads, announcements and posters, creating a uniform corporate identity. the salient, uniformly white dtv volumes with PIATTI’S characteristic illustrations are considered a milestone of elegant and high-quality book-art in the world of paperbacks. altogether PIATTI created over 6.300 book covers, picture books, book illustrations, stamps, glass paintings, murals and sculptures. a motive which leads through his entire work is the owl the symbol of wisdom.
PIATTI’S workdesk
© celestino piatti / dtv publishing
my name is hans bacher, – I work as production designer in the animation film industry. for the last 40 years I lived and worked in duesseldorf, london, paris, los angeles, manila and tokyo. now I am professor for film-design at the nanyang techn. university in singapore.
Marvelous..