Nacho Padilla (Madrid, 1970) is a copywriter and creative director renowned in the Spanish advertising milieu. In 2016 he was invited by Manuela Carmena, the newly elected Mayor of Madrid, to be the city's creative director. After being reelected as Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau invited him in 2020 to join her team. The positions Padilla held in Spain’s two largest cities are unique on a global level and so are the results of his work: the more than 150 designers, illustrators and other creative professionals he coordinated between 2016 and 2023 devised an urban communication that is truly original, polyphonic and political.

The images and messages exhibited here show how these two cities, governed by openly progressive administrations, projected their public, official voice. Made by many hands, they celebrate the struggles and achievements of women, immigrants, the LGBT community, children or the elderly. In these examples of design for citizenship, expressed in posters for cultural events and popular festivals, information leaflets or graphic elements of tactical urbanism, we can also see the impact of political changes in Spain, the covid-19 pandemic or the climate crisis.

This article also reveals how Padilla was able to create, by handling the idiosyncrasies of municipal administration, the conditions for contracting design services that favour quality and diversity over sameness or the lowest price. Showing that being the creative director of a city requires being a public manager that allies talent with imagination and a deep knowledge of his sector.