"In 2050 I will be 100 years old"
Mariscal's life is a love story with drawing.

A graphic designer, illustrator, furniture and interior designer, draftsman, and artist, Javier Mariscal is a creator who loves a challenge. An irreverent artist who has been guided by the word “freedom” throughout his life. He sketches everything he sees, wherever he happens to be. His style is impulsive and carefree, and he moves with ease between different techniques and media.

His first comic strip was published in the mid-1970s in various fanzines of the time. He played a very active role in the Movida and in the visual revolution of Spanish comics with his characters, Los Garriris (1974).

He began to be regarded as a leading designer with his creation of the “Bar cel ona” logo in 1979, and he designed the Dúplex stool, which was featured in the iconic Milan exhibition (1981) organized by Ettore Sottsass and the Memphis Group.

In 1989, he opened Estudio Mariscal, Spain’s first multidisciplinary studio, before creating one of his most famous designs: Cobi, the mascot for the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. Mariscal won the National Design Award in 1999, and in 2006, he became an honorary member of the Royal Design Industry.

Designer, he has carried out one project after another and has exhibited at the Pompidou Center in Paris, Documenta in Kassel, with retrospective exhibitions at the Design Museum in London, La Pedrera in Barcelona and in Korea. In 1989 he founded Estudio Mariscal, a multidisciplinary space and shortly before he created one of his best known designs, COBI, mascot of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. 

“I always think that drawing everything around me is the best way to understand the world. I take photographs to capture the essence of the objects I see. I sketch the objects, the light, and the movement in my sketchbook.”

He has illustrated several covers for *The New Yorker*, worked with publishers such as Phaidon, and developed visual identities for a wide range of brands, including the Swedish Social Democratic Party, The Cornan Shop, Framestore, Bancaja, Onda Cero Radio, the Barcelona Zoo, the 32nd America’s Cup, Camper, and the comprehensive design of one of the H&M stores in Barcelona. His body of work includes the graphic design for “Los amantes pasajeros,” a film by Pedro Almodóvar.

His product designs can be found in the furniture brands Moroso, Memphis, BD Ediciones de Diseño, Nani Marquina, Bidasoa, Vondom, and Magis, among many others. His broad perspective encompasses large-scale artistic installations, such as the exterior of the Glòries Shopping Center in Barcelona; a large-scale sculpture in the courtyard of the Río Hortega Hospital; and the renowned Hotel Domine in Bilbao, where he collaborated with Fernando Salas on the project’s comprehensive design.

His work is included in several collections, both public and private: the Centre Pompidou, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Vitra Design Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Barcelona Design Museum, the Lafuente Archive, the IVAM, the National Art Museum of Catalonia, the MACBA, and the Centre National des Arts Plastiques, among others.

In 2008, together with his friend, filmmaker Fernando Trueba, he released the animated film “Chico & Rita,” which garnered international acclaim, won a Goya Award, and was nominated for an Oscar in 2012. In 2023, they co-directed their second animated film, “They Shot the Pianist.”

He is currently working with potters in Spain on ceramic projects, reviving ancient traditions. He is also working on a personal graphic novel project about the cosmos and the origins of life on Earth—a theme that runs throughout his career, exploring ecology, fragility, and evolution.