José Luis Montero Rodríguez - Memoria del Diseño

José Luis Montero Rodríguez

Designer and photographer
Cartagena, 1959

The mountains have always exerted a powerful influence on José Luis. Perhaps, predestined by a surname that derives from the word “mountain”. Knowing it, walking through it, unraveling it, inside and out, has been, since he was young, one of his greatest hobbies. A passion that was awakened with the practice of caving and that also originated what would ultimately be a decisive work in his life: photography.

“Caving and photography share a fundamental aspect: curiosity. It is curiosity, the desire to discover the inaccessible, the virgin, that moves a speleologist. And it is that same curiosity, for the world and everything that inhabits it, that incites the photographer to take photographs”.

But curiosity and nature, at that time, were not a profession. So, José Luis (and his father) believed that it was convenient to have a more earthly profession, and he enrolled in Granada to study Quantity Surveyors. “I endured two years. Quitting the career was one of the smartest decisions I’ve ever made in my life. It is evident that this was not for me, it had me totally constrained.”

He decided to study Science Teaching (which he never practiced), while continuing to dedicate much of his time to photography, always in contact with nature. “At that time, and in the south of Spain, there were very few options to train as a photographer, but I managed to enroll in two courses at the University of Navarra, one with Cruz Novillo (on the image in political communication) and another with Joan Fontcuberta (on the postulates of truth in photography)”

That course, in which design and photography came together, ended up planting the seed of what would come years later, a double vision of the world that José Luis has never ceased to have, alternating both disciplines with total naturalness.

In the 80s, José Luis began to teach photography at the Popular University of Cartagena. But his hometown, at that time, was immersed in a great economic and identity crisis that generated very few opportunities and, above all, few stimuli for someone thirsty for them. “I decided to come to Murcia to make a living, to start from scratch, but being very aware of what I wanted to do with my life”.

His knowledge of topography linked to caving gave him the opportunity to start working as a photographer at the Argaric site of Almendricos. “Word spread that there was a guy who knew how to take photos and knew how to make plans, and many archaeologists began to call me to work with them on different excavations”

His first job as a designer was a poster for some summer cycles of the Popular University of Cartagena, but it is his activity as an archaeology photographer that allows him to enter the field of design. “I went from taking photos of the sites and the pieces to also designing the catalogues of the exhibitions in which they were exhibited.”

Unlike other Murcian photographers, who have also worked very significantly in the field of design (such as Paco Salinas or Ángel Fernández Saura), in the case of José Luis Montero the border between design and photography has always been much more blurred, complementing both disciplines perfectly.

His arrival in Murcia coincided with the design boom in the city, where the emergence of numerous cultural projects spurred and encouraged numerous creators, giving rise to the opening of the first studios and agencies. “Through the work that other colleagues were developing, mental doors opened for us and we discovered that there was another way to express ourselves. At that time there was no training in the field of design, we were just curious people, linked, in one way or another, to the field of artistic creation, but those first jobs allowed you to discover a trade that, until that moment, you didn’t even know existed”.

But the turning point for José Luis was his relationship with Paco Solano, from Novograf. “We have always liked each other very well. I lived, in real time, the process that led him to go from worker and union leader of the printing press to owner of the same, making it, not only one of the largest graphic industries in our country, but also a fundamental actor for the development of design and culture in our region.”

Until then, Jiménez Godoy and Belmar were the two printers that dominated the graphic sector, but the rescue of Novograf by Solano and its relationship with the socialist government of that time, made the Puente Tocinos printing house an ally for designers. “Novograf’s connection with the designers of that time went far beyond logic and the purely functional. Solano was very intelligent. While printers such as Jóse Jiménez’s maintained a closed-door policy, becoming a service provider, Novograf and Solano opted for an open-door policy, allowing designers to supervise the print runs, at the machine’s level, and at any time. We could test, investigate, change on the fly depending on the result… In short, it allowed us not only to have a much more direct relationship with our work, but also to learn, innovate, research, and improve ourselves.”

We talked about how the relationship between designers and printers has changed and how technology has ended up killing a part of our work that was fundamental, and that allowed us to maintain a much more direct relationship with our work that was shaping an experience, almost an intuition, in professionals. “Today’s designers make decisions by imitation, they tell you I want something like this, and they give you as an example other projects already produced or that they have seen on a website, without really knowing how it is done. Before, any decision that was made: the choice of paper, the weight, the intensity of the tones, the finishes… It was done in real time, in collaboration with the printer or chief engineer. There was greater involvement in all processes, which allowed you to produce less standardized, more unique and, above all, more yours projects, with all the emotional charge that this implies.”

Paco Solano became, therefore, one of the great factotums of design in that period of explosion and consolidation. “Paco was a collaborator, a faithful ally for all of us. It helped us make what we had in our heads a reality, no matter how difficult it was.”

José Luis shows me a photo, taken by Ángel Fernández Saura, of Paco Solano’s farewell in 2002. A meal held in the Gran Taberna, in which you can see Amalia Fernández (former head of Production and Paco Solano’s right-hand woman), Javier Marín Ceballos, Marcos Salvador Romera, Antonio Ballester, Ángel Haro, Paco Salinas, Severo Almansa and José Luis Montero himself.

I ask him about his relationship with Severo and I tell him that the rivalry between the two at that time was famous. “There was an obvious competition, always from mutual respect and admiration. Our styles are very different, we were never tempted to imitate each other. Customers were very clear about what each one of us could offer, and I think that rivalry, well understood, was healthy, and helped to energize the sector.”

In his first stage in Murcia, José Luis worked alone, always alternating his work as a designer, with that of a photographer, and developing projects that would begin to give him prestige within the field of editorial design, awakening in him an infinite love for books (perhaps, the field in which José Luis has stood out the most). The catalogues of the Biennial of Painting and Sculpture, that of the first exhibition of the photographer Juan Manuel Díaz Burgos (on the mines of La Unión), and that of the site of Coimbra del Barranco Ancho (in Jumilla) are among his favourites from that early period.

“My passion for books, and art books in particular, predates designing. Surely, it is in my time as a photographer where that passion was born. Keep in mind that, at that time, when the internet did not exist, to know what was being done in the field of photography, you had no choice but to study the great photographers through books and exhibitions. It is those books, those catalogues of major exhibitions that I visited compulsively, that awaken that interest in me”.

José Luis admits that he does not like the term catalogue, a concept, a design format that has been standardised, making them uniform and predictable. “I prefer to call them books, because that’s what they are, books understood as a story in which an exhibition is told and not a mere succession of photos and formatted texts. What I have tried to do is to innovate in the concept of reading these exhibition books, where the composition is important, but not more than the rhythm of reading, the sensations that a certain type of paper causes when turning the pages, and of course, the typography, of which I have always been a great scholar and to which I think I have given capital importance in my work”.

Another field, along with publishing, in which José Luis Montero has excelled, is that of exhibition design, a type of work that many designers despised because they considered it minor or more typical of technical trades, and which, however, José Luis ended up dominating, as a consequence, perhaps, of his editorial work, but above all, of his passion for visiting exhibitions. a hobby that he has always cultivated, also taking advantage of his numerous trips.

“I realised very early on that, in this translation of the book to the wall, to the spatial, there could be a synergy that fed back into each other, helping to tell, to explain the exhibition better, which is what interests me, but also helping to break down borders, to break down walls, which is, I think, my greatest contribution to the design of the region”.

I find this last point very interesting. Indeed, one of the most noteworthy aspects of José Luis Montero’s career is his multidisciplinary facet within the field of design. In a sector, increasingly dominated by specialisation, José Luis has always preferred to work from a more eclectic and Renaissance conception, facing very diverse challenges, always convinced that design can take different forms, and helping to respond to problems and needs for very diverse clients.

Perhaps, from that versatility, and from that attitude that led him to break borders, arises what – in my opinion – is the most differential element in José Luis Montero’s career and in the evolution of the sector in the Region: the inauguration of the studio+agency concept. A model that today prevails in the creative ecosystem of the Region of Murcia, but that in the 90s was an absolute revolution, making TROPA+TANDIS a benchmark for the new generations, including myself.

Until then, the division between a design studio and an advertising agency was clear and notorious, not only for clients, but also for the professionals themselves who left the School of Arts and Crafts with their Advertising Drawing degree under their arm, a degree that invited – from its diffuse conception – to that disciplinary contamination, in which a designer is also a creative and, therefore, someone capable of facing, not only design problems, but communication, in the broadest sense of the term.

Tandis already existed as an advertising agency. At the head of it was Pepe Serrano, an account executive with a great commercial flair who had been Chipola’s partner in Contraplano. “Pepe commissioned me many projects at that time. Its structure was small and it didn’t have a team of designers for its campaigns, so it commissioned them to me externally. One day he proposed that I set up a design studio, parallel to Tandis, that would be able to carry out all those projects, more graphic, that the agency could not and did not know how to assume and, incidentally, do the art direction of its campaigns”.

José Luis accepted Pepe Serrano’s offer and at Christmas 1989 they founded Tropa. “At the beginning there was a very clear separation in every way, then we went to a time in which the borders were diluted, giving rise to very interesting projects from a creative point of view, but I needed to recover the essence of what we were doing, to regain control of processes that advertising, many times, perverts, and in the last stage, the borders were once again very well defined.”

I tell him that in an era dominated by star designers and studios with a one-man brand, the implementation of a more plural and less personalistic project, made up of different designers and styles, was something very unusual. “I believe that the Region of Murcia demanded a proposal like this. The cultural revolution of the 80’s was followed by another, of a business type, which required a different model. We were lucky enough to start with a very powerful portfolio of clients that went beyond the cultural field. Tandis kept the account of CajaMurcia, at a time when the Caja had an extraordinary weight in all areas. And we got the account of the Institute of Development of the Region of Murcia, which made a very strong commitment to design, and also helped to connect with other companies and sectors”.

Under the leadership of José Luis Montero, Tropa has been nourished, since its inception, by the work of other designers, such as Francisco Pardo, Tomás Arqués and Carmen “La Mexicana” (who also worked with Eduardo Saro).

The Murcia Joven campaign of 1991 was a work that achieved a great impact, with a very modern conception of design, where the use of illustration and photography, combined with the universe of electrography (the use of the photocopier and the repromaster for artistic creation), together with a very innovative typographic development, resulted in one of the most innovative and daring campaigns in the history of Murcia Joven (a true springboard for many designers during those years).

“In those years we worked a lot. I would even say that we worked too hard. There was no time to rest the projects and we often ended up succumbing to what is today the great problem of design: its ephemeral nature, its insignificance, often as a result of excessive speed, in which the ability to reflect and investigate has almost no place anymore”.

Although, from Tropa, countless projects of all kinds were developed, including some great branding works, such as the redesign of the image of “Región Murcia Costa Cálida”, the image of the Espacio Mínimo Gallery, that of the Ramón Gaya Museum, that of the Network of Natural Spaces or that of “Lorca Taller del Tiempo”, José Luis continued to take refuge, above all, in the publishing projects, making the books of many of the exhibitions organized in the large exhibition spaces of Murcia, such as the AV Space and the Veronicas Room, the Palacio del Almudí Art Center, or the Museum of Fine Arts, but also, the books of the exhibitions of Pedro Cano, one of the most important and international artists of our Region, with whom José Luis established a relationship of friendship and collaboration that lasts to this day, giving rise to true masterpieces of regional editorial design, of which José Luis is also the author of the photographs.

The final period of Tropa, until its closure, caused by the consequences of the 2008-2012 crisis, was characterised, above all, by greater specialisation in the field of museum design, in some cases, even in collaboration with one of the great references in this sector in our country, Jesús Moreno, giving rise to the design of numerous exhibitions and interpretation centres. spread throughout Spain.

Today, José Luis Montero has returned to his condition as a freelancer, as in his beginnings, working from home, with the calm and experience that more than forty years of experience bring, and knowing, above all, what he wants and what he does not want to do. He continues to alternate the profession of designer and photographer, with his true passion, traveling and unraveling the mysteries of a nature that calls him and continues to exert a powerful influence on him. But, above all, José Luis, unlike other professionals of his time, mistreated by life and by wrong decisions that have ended up weighing down the end of their careers, is a guy who feels in the prime of life and at peace with himself.

From this last stage, two works stand out, two books that he had been wanting to do for a long time and in which he has been lucky enough to collaborate with two good friends, the photographer Joaquín Zamora and the journalist Paco Nadal (companion on numerous trips around the world, with whom he has also collaborated in the design of books and travel guides): “Murcia, Art of Light and Water”, published in 2014, and “Region of Murcia. Slow Life”, published in 2019.

I say goodbye to José Luis and I take with me a feeling that is pleasant and comforting: the human reunion with someone who, in reality, has been very important in my professional life (Tropa was the studio where I trained). Someone whom I admired in my beginnings for what he did and whom I admire today, if possible much more, for what he represents.

………
Interview by Jorge Martínez