World Design Spotlight: The design of Cobi, by Javier Mariscal

At the end of the eighties, Barcelona was preparing for the event that would change the city from top to bottom: the 1992 Olympic Games. The preparations included the search for an identity that would be recognizable, and which would be the mascot of the event. 

The initial briefing did not specify much, it was a very open competition with entries from nine design studios with all kinds of animals in their projects. In that first presentation, the jury responsible for selecting from all those proposals did not like any of them.

A second meeting was held with the aim of defining the motif of the design a little more and it was agreed at this meeting, taking as an inspiration a successful campaign being run at the time by the mayor of a small town in the Pyrenees, that the mascot could be a gos d’atura, a woolly sheepdog typical of the mountains. 

The designer Javier Mariscal (Valencia, 1950), who participated in the competition, had only submitted three drawings on three sheets because he did not really expect to win. Based on that initial idea of a sheepdog, Mariscal worked on the drawing and in March 1988 Cobi was born, his name originating from the initials COOB (Comité Organizador de las Olimpiadas de Barcelona). 

The dog had to do a lot of sports, all those included in the Olympic Games, so it needed to have arms and legs, in other words, an anthropomorphic figure. “It was an animal like those in fables, those that wear clothes and do human things. In the great story-telling tradition they have always existed. When I drew Cobi, I profiled him seeking the limit between what was and was not the mascot. The ears appeared immediately, the eyes were like those of my other drawings, he was a friendly and well-rounded character. I wanted a neutral drawing that would be recognizable to a Chinese person, a German or a South African. But it was also clear to me that Cobi was not a superhero, he had to be a mascot like an average person. Someone who plays football, who has a belly … with outlines that work well in five centimetres or in thirty metres. With a defined and easily recognizable silhouette.”

“All of this, always within the Mariscal style,” explains the designer. “So much so that thirty years later he is still representative of my way of working and I recognize myself in him. Also, my idea was not to make a frozen mascot, I wanted a mascot with emotions, who could represent all the Olympic sports but who also had feelings. Cobi was the first Olympic mascot in the world who already suffered from depression. That mental health topic that is so much in vogue today. People have been depressed since the beginning of time; Cobi, too,” he explains. 

His environment was Barcelona, so Cobi “acted like any other citizen: he went to the beach to eat bread with tomato, to drink wine and cava, (he was the first mascot to drink alcohol). Cobi was the Mediterranean citizen par excellence,” says Mariscal. 

“His physiognomy allowed him to dress up to meet the authorities but he could also wear a T-shirt and swimming trunks. He could even dress as a flamenco dancer with high-heeled shoes. The nude Cobi, which I didn’t like, is even right up to date with the definition, now so fashionable, of non-binary gender.” 

So many years later, Mariscal’s design continues to be completely relevant and, despite the initial reticence regarding his drawing, it is a design that has remained in the collective consciousness of society as a whole. Furthermore, according to the Olympic organization, he is the most profitable mascot in the history of the Olympics. Mission accomplished. 

“A few years ago, at its headquarters in Lausanne, the Olympic Committee staged a large exhibition on the graphic design of the Olympics and they placed a giant Cobi in the entrance to the display, they told me he was the most well-liked mascot there. They invited me to hold workshops at the exhibition and they gave considerable importance to Cobi among all the designs. They selected him as mascot of the actual exhibition,” he explains.

At the time of his creation there was a clear will to innovate, with Pasqual Maragall leading the city, and that was achieved: Cobi had a ground-breaking design, he was a dog with a cubist shape who looked as though he had just been squashed, which also generated certain opposition. 

“When you want to innovate you have to take risks. You have to dive into the pool without being sure there is enough water. Wherever you put forward a proposal that is to represent everybody, you don’t have to wait long for the reaction. It is rarely surprising, or different from usual. We all act with insecurity in the light of something new. ‘We will look ridiculous,’ we think. We are animals with a symbolic language and we need to understand what is happening,” he points out.

“It isn’t that I was very daring, I was aware and honest with my way of understanding this. Those who really innovated were the jury who, in the end, after a great deal of discussion, decided that Cobi would be the mascot of the games. Because what they were seeking was innovation. Like in the design of the torch, like in all the work of Josep Maria Trías with the emblem, marvellous, and all the decorations for the stadia, for the whole city, with very powerful graphic systems. Barcelona had a very sound identity.” 

“They were much more daring still when they included such a transgressive group as La Fura dels Baus to design the fiesta for the Olympic Games. Look how well they did it. Or with Tricicle or Carles Santos, who broke pianos. I don’t like to personalize but Pasqual Maragall had a lot to do with all of this, he knew how to create a team and a way of understanding that innovation. You have to recognize that behind the concept of organization of the Games there was an intention to change things. It was also the first time that the whole planet, at the same time, could watch the broadcast of the inauguration of the Olympics.”

Mariscal remembers what the writer Vázquez Montalbán said, “‘Barcelona is a northern city in a southern country.’ That is how to understand the city. People with a German aspect of organizing things well and a Sevillian aspect of organizing parties well.”

As to the question of whether a design made thirty-something years ago is still valid, Javier Mariscal, winner of the National Design Award in 1999, does not have many doubts. “Cobi is aging well, perfectly, he can be what he wants. I have Chinese Cobis, blacks, punks, tattooed … Cobi can even be a middle-class lady with a necklace. It is as though you asked me about one of my children, who to me are the brightest and best-looking in the world. For me, Cobi too is very bright, very good looking and he is aging well. The love of a father does not let me see the defects of the design.” 

Does Mariscal always innovate? 

“No idea. Don’t ask me questions like that because I live from not going to the psychiatrist and not reflecting on my work, I try to be correct, to innovate, yes, although some may think I always do the same. It is like with Cobi, I can never speak badly of him; well, I won’t speak badly about Mariscal either because that’s me, although I could also say that I am a disaster. Like everybody, I like other people’s work better. I would like to be taller, better looking, cleverer, but in the end you have to be content with what you have.” 

PHOTOS: JAVIER MARISCAL STUDIO