News
Exhibition “Celestino Piatti”
7 Jan 2025
The man who brought art to paperbacks
Like no other, Swiss graphic designer Celestino Piatti (1922–2007) shaped the appearance of West German paperback publishing.
From the founding of Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (dtv) in 1961 until the mid-1990s, Piatti designed almost all of its books. In addition to cover design, he was responsible for typography, logos, letterheads, advertisements, and posters, enabling him to create a uniform corporate identity. The striking, uniformly white dtv volumes with Piatti's characteristic illustrations are considered a milestone in elegant, high-quality book art in paperbacks. Until then, his designs had mainly focused on individual titles and were therefore unable to create brand awareness for entire paperback series.
In total, Piatti created over 6,300 book covers, picture books, and book illustrations. The total print run of the books he designed to date is over 200 million copies. The cabinet exhibition shows a selection from his early creative period in the 1960s and 1970s.
Date and location of the exhibition
- Duration of the exhibition: January 7, 2025 – June 30, 2025
- Location: University Library, anteroom to the Lernzentrum Geschwister-Scholl-Platz (2nd floor)), Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 München
Contact
Annika Assil, M.A.
University Library of LMU Munich
Special Collections Department
Rare Books Division
E-mail: susanne.wanninger@ub.uni-muenchen.de
Dr. Sven Kuttner
University Library of LMU Munich
Deputy Director
Special Collections Department
E-mail: sven.kuttner@ub.uni-muenchen.de