Ever since the first Games of the modern era in Athens in 1896, posters have played an important part in the popularisation of the Olympics. They have also served, once every four years, to identify both the host city and a particular aesthetic linked to the global image of the Games of that year. Bearing this history in mind, COOB'92 developed a highly ambitious project, which involved 58 different posters grouped in four collections: the official Olympic posters, the painters' posters, the designers' posters and the photographic sports posters.

For the four official sports posters (the work of Josep M. Trias, Javier Mariscal, Enric Satué and Antoni Tàpies) and the eight painters' posters (by Êduardo Arroyo, Antoni Clave, Eduardo Chillida, Jean-Michel Folon, Josep Guinovart, Robert Llimós, Guillermo Pérez Villalta and Antonio Saura), in addition to the normal print run there was a limited edition in silk-screen and lithograph signed by the authors, which COOB'92 used as prestige gifts for the VIPs who visited Barcelona.

For the collection of designers' posters, the leading Spanish design companies and institutions selected eighteen artists who were representative of the different trends in vogue in Barcelona, Catalonia and the rest of Spain.

Lastly, the production of the photographic posters of the twenty-five Olympic and three demonstration sports was entrusted to a design studio, which proposed integrating archive photographs of the sports with images of the planet Earth to emphasise the universal nature of the event. The Earth appeared as the only playing ground and the competitor's performance occupied centre stage. The whole run of the four collections (2,940,000 units) was produced under the sponsorship of Telefónica. The telephone company also sponsored the publication of three booklets, including reproductions of the posters and biographical notes on the authors: one for the collections of official and designers' posters, another for the painters' collection and a third for the collection of sports posters. Moreover, a de luxe book containing all four collections and a brief history of Olympic poster art was published; COOB'92 used it as a gift for VIPs.

The posters were distributed by COOB'92 free of charge. Three kinds of special packaging were prepared: plastic (for a single poster), cardboard tube (for complete collections) and boxes (for dispatching large quantities). All three bore the Barcelona'92 emblem and the Telefónica logotype.

Aside from the official collections, other posters were produced for occasional purposes, such as the thirty-three posters designed by Javier Mariscal that went with the "Barcelona'92, everyone's goal" travelling exhibition around the Olympic subsites and all the Spanish autonomous communities or the three posters published on the occasion of the official reception in Lausanne one year before the Games and the posters of flags and uniforms that were published for the Games, the work of the COOB'92 design team.

(Source document:   Official Report 1992, Vol. 3, page 333)