The design studio El vivero has donated exhibition materials from Frutas de diseño, an exhibition the studio itself conceived, designed and curated in 2022 for CentroCentro in Madrid, to Todolí Citrus Fundació.

The exhibition brought together a selection of fruit brands, with particular attention to designs created in Spain from the late 1950s onwards. Tissue papers, labels and boxes formed a visual archive of a popular graphic language that has accompanied the production, packaging and marketing of fruit for decades.

Frutas de diseño featured more than 250 tissue papers, 120 boxes and 360 labels, selected from a collection four times larger. Far from being conceived as a closed inventory, the project was presented as an open archive, built from materials gathered over the years in neighbourhood greengrocers, wholesale markets, printing houses, box factories and fruit trading companies, together with pieces from private collections.

These designs reflect the technical and aesthetic changes of the second half of the twentieth century: the renewal of printing processes, the strength of typography, flat and vivid colours, and brand names conceived to stand out among the abundance of goods in the markets. Many of them are linked to Spain’s citrus-export tradition, whose golden age, between the 1920s and 1930s, left a deep mark on the region’s commercial and graphic culture.

The incorporation of these materials into Todolí Citrus Fundació broadens its perspective on the world of citrus and its cultural dimension. Alongside the study, conservation and dissemination of citrus diversity, the Foundation now houses a record of the images, languages and objects that have accompanied their everyday circulation.

El vivero, formed by Florencia Grassi and Leandro Lattes, develops design, research and curatorial projects that pay close attention to the visual languages of everyday life. With Frutas de diseño, they brought to the foreground a largely anonymous graphic heritage, recognising the cultural and creative value of papers, labels and packaging designed to accompany fruit from its origin to the consumer.

© Photography:

CentroCentro: Lukasz Michalak

CCCC: Juán Peiró