14 Facts About Javier Mariscal

Javier Mariscal is best known for creating Cobi, the official mascot for the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics.

Javier Mariscal was born in February 1950 in the city of Valencia, Spain, into a family of eleven brothers and sisters.

Javier Mariscal started studying at Colegio El Pilar in Valencia.

Javier Mariscal created Petra, the official mascot of the 1992 Summer Paralympics.

Javier Mariscal was later the creative and artistic director of the animated television series The Cobi Troupe that starred both mascots.

Javier Mariscal opened Estudio Mariscal in 1989 and since then he has collaborated on a variety of projects with designers and architects such as Arata Isozaki, Alfredo Arribas, Fernando Salas, Fernando Amat and Pepe Cortes.

In 1995, Javier Mariscal designed the Amorosos Furniture collection for the Italian manufacturer Moroso, which includes one of his most successful pieces of furniture, the Alexandra armchair, in which the organic shapes and the use he makes of colour communicate the vital, extroverted style that characterises Javier Mariscal's objects.

In 1995, Javier Mariscal collaborated with schoolchildren in the Land of Valencia to create a collective mural sculpture during protest days for the use of the Valencian language in the education.

Javier Mariscal designed things from the uniforms to the facade, including the graphic image and its website.

Javier Mariscal did the interior design of the GHDB with Fernando Salas, who collaborated in Calle 54 Club, a project in which Fernando Trueba forms part and which provides Madrid with a live space where the most prestigious Latin jazz musicians perform, such as Bebo Valdes and Paquito D'Rivera.

In 2009, from 1 July until 1 November, a major UK retrospective of Javier Mariscal's work was shown at the London Design Museum, in which visitors enter through a tunnel showing 640 examples of the designer's style from 1970 to the present day, including his typefaces.

Javier Mariscal will be creating a mural for the outside of the Design Museum itself.

Javier Mariscal drew and co-directed, with Academy Award-winning director Fernando Trueba, the 2010 Spanish-British animated feature-length film Chico and Rita.

In 1999, Javier Mariscal received the National Design Prize of the Spanish Department of Industry and the BCD Foundation grants in recognition of achievements throughout a professional career.