The time when I designed children's books

Everybody has a past. On a recent trip to Pamplona, Spain, to attend the Malofiej infographics summit, I stopped by a bookstore and saw something that looked familiar. There, by the cash register, were two children's activity books I designed in the late 90s, when I was beginning my career. This and this.

At that time I was a junior infographics journalist at a newspaper called Diario16, and I was making a small salary. Madrid is a quite expensive city, so I took a second job as a freelancer for a company called DPI Comunicación, a pioneer in the design of information graphics for the Spanish press.

DPI didn't do just infographics, though, but also all sort of odd jobs for companies that didn't have anything to do with journalism. One of them was Susaeta, a firm that publishes mostly children and educational books. Between 1998 and 2000 I designed books and board game boxes for Susaeta through DPI. It was fun and the money was sorely needed, but the results were, I'd have to admit, pretty terrible. Just take a look: