Graphic designer Alejandro Magallanes has earned a reputation far outside Mexico for his posters, a hallmark of which is their reinterpretation of popular Mexican imagery, use of mixed media and strong visual impact. Magallanes will speak at WDCD2015 on 21 & 22 May in Amsterdam.
Born in Mexico City in 1971, Alejandro Magallanes graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas (UNAM) in 1994. In his craft he ‘plays and works with images and letters’, as he puts it, either upon request or just for pleasure. He has written nine children’s books and, most recently, a volume of poetry entitled Pasado en limpio.
Hand-written excerpts and printed fonts, caricatures and silhouettes, drawings and visual references, flat colours and shades all appear in his compositions, which place the figure at the centre of the design, creating a forceful presence.
Most of his work is made for social and cultural media, and he has drawn, painted, built and designed countless books, posters, animations, collages, photographs, letters and images. Three monographs of his work as a graphic designer and poster designer have been published in China, Spain and Germany. He has been a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale since 2004.
Magallanes is a founding member of a number of activist poster groups whose work advocates peace and justice for women and minorities. They include El Cartel de Medellin, La Corriente Electrica and Fuera de Registro, who support the Zapatistas people of Chiapas, the sounternmost state of Mexico. Another of these organizations is the Women of Juárez, set up to prevent violence against women in Juárez, the northern Mexican city that has lost hundreds of girls and women to unsolved murders in recent decades.
Magallanes does not believe in the adage that an image is worth a thousand words, since ‘a thousand words combined can create six million images, more or less’.
To see and hear more from Alejandro Magallanes, buy your ticket for WDCD2015 now.