GELU FLOREA

HISTORY
Gelu Florea is a graduate of the Design Department of the Visual Arts Academy in Cluj. In 2013, he launched the project GELU’S LIBRARY, which includes all of his self-publishing efforts. With the library Carturesti Verona as its home, GELU’S LIBRARY has reached 8 titles in just 3 years.

SPECIFIC
A dedicated advertiser, Gelu is a regular jack of all trades of the publishing industry: he is the man behind the concept, the illustrations, the texts, the layout, the editing, the binds and the covers, with most the latter made in his own workshop. For added value and only in a limited number of situations, Gelu may, at times, accept a little help from his friends. But this hardly ever happens and is unlikely to become a habit.

ROMANIAN DESIGN WEEK APPEARANCES
2017 // THE SEINI HOLLER
The autumn of 1978. By accident, not by choice or calling, he ends up studying in an agricultural high school. Thus does junior Florymontes becomes the editor-in-chief of The Seini Holler. And also its owner, reporter, correspondent, cartoonist, printer and distribution manager. He writes and, every Monday, he hands out the newspaper he has handwritten the day before (this was, after all, an age when the means to multiply the written word were still completely lacking). The newspaper is successful, but the end of high school marks the end of journalism in Seini. 30 years later, the meeting with the former class master and an item of news thus transmitted determine Florymontes to write yet another issue of The Holler.

2017 // BIKE MESSENGER
Despite being an accomplished Art Director, admired by his peers and awarded multiple times by the industry, he decides to give up the good life he lives in the advertising agency and become a delivery man on wheels: “I want to bring joy to people and I want to deliver it myself. I want to ride my bicycle all day long, and in the evening, when I get home, I want to fall asleep without having to drink my way through”. Alas, the opportunity to deliver joy fails to arise: there is a complete lack of job openings, and the promises from the managers of the courier companies are all talk, no action. Convinced that his attempts are doomed, the delivery-man-to-be leaves it all behind and goes on a wondrous quest, behind the handlebar of his faithful bike Margellan.

2017 // 100 5 50
100 years after the battles lead in the Carpathian front in the autumn of 1916, the author, whose hobby is detecting metal in old war sites, celebrates 5 years of uninterrupted activity, and also the 50th expedition in the mountains that surround Campulung Arges. He gathers all his acts of bravery in the trenches in a new book, and gives it to all his war buddies. In the last pages, filled with satisfaction, he writes: "I was lucky enough to make friends for life. Kaiser Wilhelm honored me with His gracious generosity. I can spot trenches, irrespective of the state they are in, from afar. I know how it feels to fear your enemy, for I too was alone and unarmed, surrounded by bears. At the end of the day, I would write in my diary every little detail of the expedition, like the most thorough of generals. I have become a veteran".