Bruno Munari’s children’s book Circus in the Mist

A couple of years ago, I contributed a number of texts to the Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design which was my first book contribution and an amazing experience. The Phaidon editors selected every example they commissioned from me – from infographics, to fonts, to magazine covers – and as a result, I learnt so much about graphic design. Even though 26 of my entries were published, for some reason, a few stories I wrote on children’s books and toys were not published – they must have decided to leave these out. So, since it is just sitting there, here is one of the stories I wrote, on a beautiful book by Italian designer and artist Bruno Munari.

Circus in the Mist – or Nella Nebbia di Milano – was created by Italian designer and artist Bruno Munari in 1968. With black illustrations printed on transparent paper, this is not just a children’s book, but an object of play.

Bruno Munari was a member of the Italian Futurist movement in the 1920s and founder of the Concrete moment in 1948, which strove to bring art and design together. In Bruno Munari: Design as Art, Munari is quoted as saying: “The designer is therefore the artist of today, not because he is a genius but because he works in such a way as to re-establish contact between art and the public.” Children’s books were just one way that Munari achieved this contact.

Munari’s graphic design, including his children’s and adult’s books, sought to break down traditional barriers. By both designing and illustrating his books, he created a dynamic interaction between design and content. One way of further animating the images was to use transparent sheets overlaid to create dramatic effects with every turn of the page, such as in Nella Nebbia di Milano.

The book’s 26 pages are made of tracing paper, creating a poetic sense of mist – through the pages, one can see the city of Milan – its trees, lights, cars, motorcycles, fire hydrants, bridges and so on. The more pages are turned, the more of the city becomes visible through the ‘mist’ on the right, while the earlier images fade from the pages on the left.

Hence, as one ‘travels’ through the book, one experiences a trip through Milan in the mist. While the pages are beautiful individually, it is their combination and the use of tracing paper that gives the true effect of the book and the reader’s hand participates in the construction of each experience.

You can still buy Circus in the Mist second hand here.