Pixelarte 2022 Calendar

A project that unites design, graphic legacy and the city of Valencia for its year as World Design Capital

The most usual way of not seeing something consists of seeing it too many times. The old commercial signs scattered throughout the urban landscape of our cities are an example of this. The accelerated process of transformation in the old districts makes us suddenly miss them and notice those elements that still survive.

Pixelarte Calendar is an in-house project that we have carried out for years with a lot of love for our clients, suppliers, family and friends. This year 2022 our calendar is a collaboration with Juan Nava and his ‘Letras Recuperadas’ project. It invites us to look at those traditional signs – those still standing and those already gone – as if they were before our eyes for the very first time. From photographs taken previously, each of the signs has been subject to a digital re-drawn process in neutral colour, free from context, which allows the study or the enjoyment of its more purely typographical qualities.

As 2022 is the year of Valencia World Design Capital, the year of creativity and of all the projects and professionals that made it possible… we also wanted to make our little contribution. That is why, from Pixelarte and Gráficas River we present a calendar that seeks to appreciate and pay tribute to those trades related to the world of design such as lettering or graphic arts, as well as to invite us to discover a small part of the great documentation work by Juan Nava.

We hope you like it and that you find it helpful to discover new ways of seeing our city, so that you enjoy it as much as we did while making it!

Client Pixelarte
Categories Editorial design
Year 2022

To that end, we propose a little tour focused on the city of Valencia, formed by signs that still stand and that - in one way or another - are already part of our city’s essence. The calendar includes 13 signs (one for each month and an extra one) along with a brief explanation for each of them and a small map that locates them, puts them in context and makes them stand out even more as protagonists in the visual chaos of a city.

In order to highlight the beauty of the letters themselves, we followed Juan Nava’s technique to present them with a single ink and on a single neutral colour paper. In Pixelarte we sought to make it work perfectly as the piece it is but also to transmit elegance and exceptional care for detail. That is why we spent a lot of time to find the optimal paper and ink colour: Fedrigoni Pearl paper and a greyish ink with certain greenish and blueish tones, which gives it a more vivid appearance while maintaining the sobriety that the project required.

With the double objective of making them visible and helping them to be a part of the collective imagery, we proposed this calendar as a series of sheets that can work independently. This way, once the current year or month is over, they can be detached and allow the signs to begin being part of each of our homes, memory albums or gifts.

Concept and design: Pixelarte. Printing: Gráficas River. Lettering: Letras Recuperadas, Juan Nava. Printed on Fedrigoni Sirio Color Rough Pearl 350gr. and 210gr.

This calendar aims to be a tribute to all the letters that are being lost or are already lost in the city of Valencia, and that is why along with showing them we include a brief explanation for each of them that puts them – in a certain way – in their context.

The calendar is designed to be able to work also as independent sheets, suggesting a use that goes beyond the calendar and allowing the signs to become part of our homes as decoration.

In order to give the absolute leading role to the signs, we decided to use only one type of paper and ink, resulting in a simple calendar which looks vivid and at the same time maintains the sobriety that the project required.