Una storia lunga come by Pino Tovaglia

“Dedicated to fans of graphic design, illustration and simple admirers of a great protagonist who spontaneously addresses children, with a hint of mystery...”

Why Pino Tovaglia kept this unpublished work, or what its true genesis is, we will never know. The fact is that his daughter Irene, getting her hands on her father’s materials, found these 24 plates, held together with tape, with an intriguing cover where the Pirelli logo stands out, front and back. The mystery deepens because the managers of the famous brand claim that there is no trace of such a project in their archives; even during the years of the collaboration between the designer and the multinational company nothing leads back to this pamphlet, which appears to be a real prototype.

Whatever its origin, it is in any case an interesting and singular study of the elongated form, which Tovaglia evidently enjoys doing of his own free will. The association with the brand, as far as we can surmise, probably arises by analogy with the content, or vice versa.

The 56 pages of A story as long as are thus a valuable exercise in style, reproposed in its formal integrity, but adapted for a contemporary publication, accompanied by a short text by Marta Sironi, which allows us to investigate and enhancethe more human side of one of the most significant figures of Italian graphic design in the second half of the twentieth century.