Monday Matticchio - Sleeping bag

Franco Matticchio, 1994.

More Mari

“I would like to draw attention to shapes, in reaction to the image bombardment produced by television.” 
Iela Mari, 1968

Enzo Mari met his future wife Iela at Brera Academy in Milan. Towards the end of the

 sixties, Iela started creating children’s books, first alone, then together with her husband.

 Later, while Enzo was busy at work designing toys, objects and furniture, 

Iela became professor at Milan’s Istituto Europeo di Design and continued illustrating 

books on her own. All her creations are wordless narrations of natural cycles and 

playful transformations. Her revolutionary conceptual approach is clean and essential, 

graphically striking and innovative. The following books are published in Italy 

by Babalibri (I have included reference to the titles and publishers 

of the original American editions when available)

Il palloncino rosso, 1967 (The Magic Balloon, S G Phillips)

Iela Mari’s first book, Il palloncino rosso, describes the metamorphosis 

of a chewing gum bubble with a minimalist language made of white space, 

black line drawings and simple red shapes.

L’albero, 1968 (The Tree and the Seasons, Barrons Juveniles) 
photos from PAUL's flickr photostream

In her following books, Iela Mari explores the world of nature with her innovative eye: 

“… one needs to start with analysis in order to arrive at synthesis, not the other way around. 

For example, one needs to first draw all the details in a leaf and then erase, erase, erase…”

L’uovo e la gallina, 1969, with Enzo Mari (The Chicken and the Egg, Pantheon Books)

“During the war, in Milan, we were hungry. I raised chicken, I know how chicks are born! 

I also love looking at the growth of my green plants. The landscape doesn’t interest me.

 What I enjoy, is to lay on the ground in the woods, to feel an ant climbing, 

feel myself being pushed by the roots.”

La mela e la farfalla, 1970, with Enzo Mari (The Apple and the Moth, Pantheon Books)

Hopefully, this post will be followed by one on Mari's later books, 

if I can get a hold of them! Some are currently published in Spain and Japan...

Sunday Safari - Peeps into Zoo-land

Lovely preys abound in the wildlife preserves of bloggerland:

Vintage children's book covers, from BibliOdyssey

Wire sculptures by Susan Graham, from Kickcans and Conkers

Felt bunnies by Hut up, from Kickcans and Conkers

Miniature felted dog portraits by Amelia Santiago,

from My love for you is a stampede of horses

Baconfish by Hamburgerpanda, from Aqua-Velvet

The Rain Puddle by Roger Duvoisin, from Moonflygirl

Barbar by Ikea, from Madame Bidule

Enzo Mari's playful simplicity

The shapes of toys must be based on archetypal images, and these images must be realized

 with the highest possible quality and not in the style of “children’s drawings.”

Enzo Mari

Mari is one of the most respected and influential Italian product designers, and also 

a thoughtful visual artist, teacher and writer. At 22, while working at my first 

graphic design job in the milanese studio of Andrea Rovatti, a former student of Mari, 

I had the privilege of meeting the great man. Alas! at the time I knew that he was famous,

 but was unaware of his rationalist design philosophy and body of work. 

But I was familiar with at least one of his creations, the Sedici Animali puzzle, 

since it had been given to me as a child.

This wooden toy was designed in 1957 for the Italian company Danese, and has gone

 through a number of re-editions in different materials since. At first, I was a bit surprised

 when I saw the hefty price tag (341 euros) of the contemporary limited edition reissue 

of this modernist classic. But then again, these lovely oak animals are a children’s toy, 

a vintage design icon and a piece of modern sculpture all-in-one! And putting 

the puzzle back together is always a fun challenge, at least for me...

Mari also designed the Sedici Pesci variation.

Using the same 16 animals, Mari went on to create the limited edition children’s book

 L’Altalena in 1961. This wordless accordion book, exploring the concepts of shape,

 quantity, weight and balance, has recently been reprinted by the excellent 

Italian publisher Corraini (pet peeve: on their website they translated the title in english

 “The Swing”, while it’s clearly a see-saw.) Also, it's fun to see that Mari's choice of 

cover colors breaks a well established graphic design taboo: the infamous red text 

on green combination. He was a famous provocateur, so maybe he did it on purpose!

Photos courtesy of Helena Zália at 2zai.blogspot.com.

Mari’s love of simple, archetypal natural shapes also espresses itself 

in his large 1965 serigraphs:

Quattro, la pantera.

Otto, l’oca. Both are on sale at Danese's online shop.

1965 was also the year of The Fable Game, an inventive children’s book-game consisting 

of 46 simple animal and natural figures represented on both sides of six separate boards.

 These can be pieced together in an endless variety of combinations, stimulating 

creativity, storytelling and imaginative play. The Fable Game has also been reissued 

by Corraini. In 2007 the publisher organized a nice exhibition at la Casina di Raffaello 

in Rome, where the game was enlarged child-size, becoming a small labyrinth 

or theatre stage that children could rearrange and reinvent at will.

Monday Matticchio - Showering