Celestino Piatti. Swiss Artist, Painter and Designer.

Celestino Piatti (1922-2007) was a Swiss graphic artist, painter and book designer.

He is popular for his illustration work for children’s books, though he also achieved international

success as a designer for Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (DTV), whose books, from 1961 until

the mid-1990s, were designed almost exclusively by Piatti, a total of over 6,300 titles !

In addition to the cover design, he was responsible for typography, Signet, letterheads,

advertisements and posters, providing a uniform identity to the DTV catalog.

A motif that runs through his entire work, is the owl, as a messenger of good luck or misfortune, or as

a symbol of wisdom. 1992 Piatti said in a magazine: “You can draw a thousand times the owl,

but never get its secret”.

I love his fresh strong lines and scratchy details. No wonder kids and adults liked him so much.

There is an interesting interview with Celestino taking about Poster art here.