Counterculture · 2003–present · Latin America & Caribbean

Cartonera Books (Latin American Cardboard Publishing)

Also known as Editoriales cartoneras, Cartonera publishing, Libros cartoneros, Latin American cardboard publishers

Books of Latin America's cartonera presses, begun by Eloísa Cartonera in Buenos Aires in 2003 after Argentina's 2001 crash: photocopied texts stapled and glued by hand into covers cut from used boxes, usually bought from cartoneros (waste pickers) above the market price. Each cover is painted by hand in tempera or acrylic, often through stencils, usually with title and author in big many-coloured capitals over the box's own printing, so every copy is unique. By 2012 more than sixty presses had followed, and Eloísa received that year's Principal Prince Claus Award.

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A sample layout drawn from the style’s design choices. Stylogeny doesn’t generate images of this style, out of respect for the people it belongs to.

Use it with care

Cartonera publishing is a living network of small presses. Eloísa, Sarita and Dulcinéia Catadora buy cardboard from cartoneros and catadores above the market price and pay former or working waste pickers, or their young relatives, to paint and bind the books (at Dulcinéia also to sell them). Others work differently: Animita Cartonera buys its board above market price but makes the books with at-risk young people and housewives, and at La Cartonera of Cuernavaca waste pickers take no part in the books, a departure Bilbija (2009) points out. The painted cardboard look means something because of that exchange. Do not fake it as a 'recycled' or 'street' texture for a brand that pays no one, and do not turn waste pickers' poverty into decoration: buy from or commission the presses, credit them, and if you make books in their manner, buy the cardboard from the people who collect it.

How it works

Cut every cover from salvaged corrugated cardboard bought from the people who collect it, and usually leave the board in view: its brown or white coating, its ridges and the box's own printing (brand names, barcodes, 'Industria Argentina') become part of the design, though some covers are painted over edge to edge.
Paint the title and the author's name by hand in tempera or acrylic as big capitals that fill the cover, a different bright or pastel colour for each letter, and break words across lines wherever the board runs out.
Make no two copies alike: paint each cover separately, freehand or through stencils, so that an edition is a run of one-offs rather than identical prints.
Keep the inside cheap and plain: photocopied or home-printed pages, stapled or sewn by hand and glued into the board, with no designed typography competing with the cover.
Let the workshop author the cover rather than a designer: at Eloísa, Sarita and Dulcinéia covers are painted by former or working waste pickers, their children and relatives, neighbours and writers alike and often go unsigned; Eloísa Cartonera even refused a fixed logo and changed its imprint name from book to book.

Buenos Aires: Eloísa Cartonera, opened in 2003 by the writer Washington Cucurto and the artists Javier Barilaro and Fernanda Laguna in the aftermath of Argentina's 2001 crisis; its covers were painted and bound at their cardboard shop and gallery, No hay cuchillo sin rosas. Accounts differ on the date: Bilbija gives August 2003, Guinness World Records 'early 2003', and the author note on the flap of Cucurto's El curandero del amor (Emecé, 2006) puts it in 2002; the 2001 sometimes given refers to the crisis that prompted it. One direct antecedent was the Casa de la Poesía's Arte de Tapa: Poesía + Plástica project, which Cucurto co-organised and from which came the imprint Ediciones Eloísa, publishing poetry and short fiction by mostly unpublished authors; Laguna had co-founded Belleza y Felicidad with Cecilia Pavón in 1999, a gallery, gift shop and small press of cheap photocopied chapbooks in Almagro, the same neighbourhood as the cartonera's workshop. They bought cardboard from cartoneros, the street waste-paper pickers, at 1.50 pesos a kilo; Bilbija notes that 0.30 was the usual price.

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition: Full bleed characteristic
Collage & layering characteristic
Diagonal axis occasional
Space & hierarchy: Horror vacui characteristic
Flat hierarchy occasional
Visual tension occasional
Typography: Hand-lettering defining
Type as image defining
All caps characteristic
Tight setting characteristic
Stencil occasional
Rotated & vertical setting occasional
Experimental & distorted occasional
Colour: Full polychrome defining
Earth & mineral characteristic
Pastel characteristic
Flat fields characteristic
Fluorescent & neon occasional
Form & shape: Non-representational occasional
Squiggles & confetti occasional
Stylised figuration occasional
Surface & texture: Painterly brushwork defining
Paper & letterpress bite defining
Photocopy & distress occasional
Hard offset shadow occasional
Ornament: Restrained accents occasional
Imagery: Found & vernacular imagery defining
Typography only characteristic
Painterly illustration occasional
Medium & production: Hand-painted defining
Photocopy & zine characteristic
Screen printing occasional
Pen, brush & ink occasional
Tone & intent: Communal & popular defining
Warm & approachable characteristic
Rebellious & subversive characteristic
Utopian & idealistic characteristic
Playful & witty characteristic
Avoids: Emblems & badges, Modular grid, Generous white space, Gloss & highlights, Chrome & 3D render, 3D render, Luxurious & glamorous, Rational & objective, Authoritative & institutional

Palette

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#1d1b1a

Typefaces

Chunky capitals dabbed or painted in acrylic through cut stencils, which leave solid letters rather than bridged stencil type, a different colour for each letter and sometimes outlined in white (Eloísa Cartonera covers)
Freehand brush capitals in tempera for title and author, sometimes outlined in a darker colour and run vertically or diagonally across the board (Eloísa and Sarita Cartonera)
The box's own printing left in view as found lettering
brand names, 'Industria Argentina', 'Frágil', weights and barcodes
Plain photocopied or laser-printed book type inside, set with whatever software is to hand

Known for

Eloísa Cartonera (Buenos Aires, from August 2003; Washington Cucurto, Javier Barilaro, Fernanda Laguna)
Ricardo Piglia, El pianista (2003), one of its first titles, whose colophon said the copy was made by cartoneros with cardboard bought at 1.50 pesos a kilo (Bilbija adds that 0.30 was the usual price); a copy in the UW–Madison collection has the title painted in green, red, orange and yellow over a box printed with a barcode and 'Mendoza Argentina'
César Aira, El todo que surca la Nada (Eloísa Cartonera, 2003), the title hand-painted in yellow, pink and white
University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries, Cartonera Publishers Collection
Martín Adán, La casa de cartón (Eloísa Cartonera, 2004 and 2007)
a 2004 copy with the title stencilled in acrylic over pink, blue, yellow and black fields, and a 2007 copy with ADÁN painted freehand in pink, orange, green and yellow inside a dark purple outline (UW–Madison Libraries)
Washington Cucurto, La máquina de hacer paraguayitos (Eloísa Cartonera, 2005), pink, green, blue and lilac capitals outlined in white, applied with stencils in acrylic and broken across lines over a kraft box printed 'FRAGIL / PRODUCTO DE VIDRIO' (UW–Madison Libraries)
Sarita Cartonera (Lima, 2004; Tania Silva and Milagros Saldarriaga)
Montserrat Álvarez, Nerópolis, a cover cut from a Hewlett-Packard printer box, two boards joined with orange muslin, the title and author's name painted vertically and diagonally by Pepe La Rosa, Diego Muñoz and Shylla Marcos, young people from Callao
Alejandro Neyra, Peruvians Do It Better (Sarita Cartonera, 2007), three screenprinted layers (a yellow print, a red outline figure and hand-lettered text) on plain cardboard
Animita Cartonera (Santiago de Chile, 2005), whose covers are worked by hand with tempera, acrylic, spray paint and printing ink and decorated with paper, wool and magazine cuttings
Dulcinéia Catadora (São Paulo, 2007), founded by the sculptor Lúcia Rosa and working with the Cooperglicério recycling cooperatives; catadores, their children, artists and writers paint the covers in workshops at the recycling centres, and the covers go unsigned