World Design Spotlight: 2016 Fallas posters by Ibán Ramón

Popular tradition attributes the origin of the Fallas to the fact that in March, with the onset of spring, carpenters cleared out their workshops and took unwanted pieces of wood out into the street to be burnt. Over time, those carpenters were joined by local residents who collected old junk to burn on the bonfire. This is known as “l’estoreta velleta”. This historic origin was one of the main lines behind the work developed by the designer Ibán Ramón for the graphic image of the Fallas of 2016, an especially important year because the Valencian fiestas successfully opted to be included on the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Design has been present in falla creativity since, in 1929, the Valencian Society for the Promotion of Tourism thought it would be a good idea to create a poster to represent the most important fiestas of Valencia. Its creator that first year was the artist José Segrelles. 

Since then, design has defined, also by omission, both the graphic aspect projected in the llibrets (booklets), and magazines, and in the conception of the monuments themselves but, above all, its presence has been visible in the posters announcing the fiesta, in which big names such as Josep Segrelles, Vicent Canet, Rafael Raga, Santiago Carrilero, Vicente Ballester, Enrique Yelo and Manuel Boix have taken part. 

Back to the design that concerns us, that of the year of the UNESCO declaration, from among the obsolete objects sought by designer Ibán Ramón in markets and workshops, he selected those that provided a symbolic content, all made from wood. 

“The design of the campaign and the series of posters for the Fallas in 2016 took into account, as the main context, the possible inclusion that year of the Fallas in the UNESCO catalogue of intangible heritage of humanity. The graphic image needed to help understand the cultural magnitude and interest of this fiesta. Therefore, the image had to explain the fiesta itself, enhancing some of its aspects,” explains the designer Ibán Ramón. 

Among those objects found, we can see tools such as the chisel and the plane, which represent the teamwork and tradition of the workshops of falla artists and carpenters. A wooden ruler that symbolises technique and creativity, and a set square, a traditional tool used in the work of architects and designers, who are also gradually beginning to participate in the creation of the fallas. 

An old shoe last, in allusion to the traditional costume. A spinning top for leisure, for the fun had by the public and in representation of childhood. And some letters from an old typographic printshop, which symbolize falla literature, the work of poets, scriptwriters, writers of llibrets, but also that of academics and researchers.

All these elements are situated on the plane of tangibility and reality, but they are set against a background in which typical scenes of these fiestas are represented in a very synthetic manner: the fallera woman, the traditional music, the fire consuming falla effigy and humour represented by a ninot, or falla figure.

“The commission, initially, was to make a poster announcing the fallas. These were the first occasions that a ‘call for project’ was issued, a professional procurement model that replaced the previous poster competitions, open to the public and with questionable results. In the context mentioned above, and taking into account the scale of the idea to be communicated, we proposed, for the first time in the series of official Fallas posters, a graphic campaign comprising 4 coordinated posters and a previous ‘teaser’ poster,” explains the designer.

The proposed sequence of images commences with a poster that introduces the campaign and acts as an intriguing teaser. This piece is used to generate expectation, but especially to introduce the concept and help understand later the main theme of the campaign “the different activities as the building blocks of the fiesta”. Finally, the whole series of Falles de València 2016, which forms part of an extensive coordinated image with a multitude of applications in which the symbolism of the different objects acquires even more meaning.

“The main challenge was to try to reflect simultaneously the cultural and festive aspects so that, maintaining aspects of traditional iconography, everything would fit together within a contemporary aesthetic,” explains Ramón.

“An important lesson that remains from that work is how appropriate it is to be true to the idea without anticipating results, and that the complexity of the communicational aims can be attended to from a simple starting point. We began collecting ‘junk’ in the studio, by way of an “estoreta velleta”. Old wooden objects, from which we built the image. We managed to maintain the connecting theme from the outset,” he concludes.