In terms of graphic and packaging design the Chupa Chups lolly-pop logo it is up their with the greatest of brand logos such as Campbell Soup, Guinness and Marmite. So was quite surprised to find out yesterday that it was designed by the master of surrealist painting Salvador Dali back in 1969. Can you believe it? If you don’t check out the company’s website:
Though really the more you think about it, the more it makes sense. Dali throughout his lifetime was the ultimate self publicist, lending his imagery to a range of commercial interests in his later life, and using himself as a brand. People are just as familiar with his own image as well as his paintings.
No clearer can evidence of this be found than if you think about his creation of the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Spain. Billed as the Worlds Largest Surrealist object this museum was created by Dali himself during his own lifetime to be a shrine to his own work. Here, among other things you witness his ‘Mae West Room‘ which was created specifically for the space, and where the famous ‘lips‘ sofa comes from, which in itself is now a design classic, even being used as the main object to advertise the recent exhibition ‘Surreal Things’ at the V&A museum in London.
It seems as if Andre Breton was right all along when he coined the anagram ‘avida dollars’ (translates to eager for dollars) when talking about Salvador Dali and his later output.
I’m surprised Dali did not bring out his own range of candy…..although I’ll probably find out tomorrow that he did that as well. Nothing would surprise me anymore!
designchowder 
January 8, 2008 at 11:27 pm
[…] I know so little about him, I didn’t have any interest to go. Had I known that Dalí was the designer of the Chupa Chups logo, I would have felt differently. (Internet Research has yet to provide me with satisfactory […]