Each year, at the end of December, we wish each other happiness and prosperity
like a rite of passage for the new year. A single number differentiates the newborn year from the previous one.

But even though it hasn’t earned it, we entrust the new year with all our good-luck wishes.

We start using a new calendar, which marks solstices and equinoxes, holidays and workdays. A roadmap for the next 366 days.

At Estrada Design, we like to start the new year wishing everyone “Good Design”.

And we like to accompany this wish with a brief summary of what we designed the previous year.

Good covers complete books. They say something about the quality of the edition and the professionalism of the publishers. Covers enhance a book. I believe, therefore, that people who value a book also care about the covers and they may sway them when choosing one edition or another.

But I believe covers are also something else. They are the doors and windows of books, they make our browsing of bookstore new release tables easier and more pleasant.

They help us choose books and turn them into more beautiful and desirable objects. When I began designing covers, I did not think it was necessary to read the books. Yet, after designing several hundred of them, I realized that, with a few exceptions, the best covers I have designed are for the books I know best, that have moved me, or whose contents have interested me most.

Manuel Estrada

Cultural publication and cover design for the Fundación Mediterraneo, illustrated by Manuel Estrada.

Designed by Estrada Design and edited by Alianza Editorial, Written by Julia Ramírez Blanco, 15M. The time of the squares offers an approximation of a phenomenon that left an indelible mark on the memory of several generations.