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Rene Wanner's Poster Blog

David Consuegra, jury member from Colombia at the 8. Bienial Internacional de Cartel en Mexico and invited speaker at the Festival Internacional del Diseno y las Artes in Xalapa, died of a heart attack at the age of 65 in his hotel in Mexico City in the night of October 30, 2004, after happily celebrating the conclusion of the festival with his friends.

I met David a few days ago at the World Trade Tower revolving restaurant in Mexico City, and we had an evening of intensive discussion on typography, on posters, on the problem of content and form and how, or if, both should be in some agreement in posters, if posters should have a meaning or message, if all designers of "Tosca" posters at the Biennial had seen the play and also understood it, if a font of a text should match the content of the text, what to do about the default font in a browser on which a web designer has no control, and so on. We both completely forgot to look at the splendid view of Mexico DF at night.

Later, in Xalapa, Maestro Consuegra presented an overview of his book on "American type and type designers" in which his immense and thorough knowledge of the history of typography is preserved.

I learned of David's death in an unexpected way:
On November 1, the "Dia de los Muertos" is a big fiesta in Mexico. Many families make a small altar in their home, richly decorated with flowers, with portraits of family members or friends who have died, with their favorite food and drink and cigarettes or books. In Mexico, All Saints Day is a happy celebration, with smiling skulls made from sugar or chocolate, skeletons dressed up as distinguished ladies, parties with music at the cemeteries and so on. It was rather a shock for me when Lourdes and Luis Almeida showed me their altar and mentioned that they also have a picture of David, the page from the Bienial catalogue.

"All of us must die" said the smiling La Catrina on the stage of the Teatro Estado in Xalapa on the night after David's death, and I know this is no comfort for David Consuegra's family, and especially his wife who was with him in Mexico. But what a way to go for David, what a time, what a place ...