Title
Almanacco Letterario Bompiani
Designer
Bruno Munari
Year
1933
Client
Bompiani
Medium
Periodical
Size
28×20 cm
Notes
One of the numerous covers that Bruno Munari designed for Bompiani Literary Almanac between 1933 and 1977. Munari, who was also responsible for numerous book layouts, tried to search for “a visual parallel to literary expression”—B. Munari, 1977.
The title on the cover seems to have been quickly traced with a brush on a bare wall, as if to suggest that the very essence of literature can also be found in the essential gesture of writing a few words on a wall. Beyond the better-known burgundy red cover, a blue version was also printed.
The book is also available with a different cover (maybe not by Munari) featuring a slanted title, repeated three times in a very interesting way by using the entire space of the cover and going beyond it. However, this layout looks to have been exactly copied by the German book ‘Es kommt der Neue Fotograf’, originally designed by Fritz Adolphy in 1929 and here reproduced for comparison. [NMM]