Format designer Elmer Almaguer Paneque

Whenever we used to close together in the then 26 daily, at the end of the 80's of the last century, Elmer Almaguer Paneque and I tried to impose our different position in the way of using the color red with greater sanity; but above all supported by the knowledge we had of design and perhaps fleeing from the norm that existed, very generalized, of the use of red indiscriminately.

When we were beginning to define the front page, Elmer used to tell me "Today only the masthead is red", as a joke, but as if to make it clear that we would use it properly, and one day perhaps we went too far following the concepts of the other colleagues of the Board of Directors, who loved red; and all the headlines of that day we used it in black, but based on sobriety and a style that had to be recognized by the other graphic elements used, and an evident balance of the four quadrants of visual communication.

Thus, with the first design, we were looking with pleasure at our work, convinced that we had achieved something different and well thought out, and we commented on the impact that the circulation of that edition of the 26 Newspaper would cause, when Ramiro Segura, the director, arrived to take a look at "the face of the daily."

- Who died? -asked Segura with a face of a few friends.

- What do you mean, who died? -I answered.

- Yes, because if the first one only has red on the male face, it's because we're in mourning or something has happened.

- No, Ramiro, it's a style used in the world," I tried to explain, but the Director stopped me in my tracks.
- In the world, it may be, but not here.

- The problem is that we were told to save the red because there is no ink," Elmer dared to joke with his very lucid face and the irony that always characterized him.

- Elmer, this is serious," said Segura again. Right now, you will make the front page for me again and without inventions -sentenced the director and we had to restart our work, with a new format and design, loaded with red.

Format designer Elmer Almaguer PanequeWhen Segura left, Elmer told me: "Now we are going to put even the photos in red."

The anecdote spread from mouth to mouth and the mischievous colleagues did not stop teasing us when they saw us together they would start with the most diverse jokes, from the fact that we were changing the color of the masthead to the most unexpected jokes.

Elmer was always a guy with a quick mind to grasp and transmit ideas. Even when someone thought he was immersed in his formats and designs, he had the gift of being attentive to everything that was being talked about and happening around him, and at the slightest oversight, he would dip his "spoon" and disembark with unique, emblematic phrases and thoughts.

Elmer dedicated more than 30 years to 26 Newspaper, since he stopped being a foundryman in several industries to become a format designer of the newspaper, as a student of Antonio Morales in its beginnings, and later as a teacher of all those who approached the specialty in which he left a beautiful service record.

Today, Elmer is no longer physically here, and to evoke him is still a luxury especially to remember and laugh with the thousand anecdotes of the emblematic newspaper 26, which later became a weekly, of which he was the protagonist in a high percentage together with the collective, and to always corroborate that throughout his life he was Elmer quick mind.