The Unusual Barcelona and Yiayia come together at Chandal
As of today (28 May 2026), anyone purchasing The Unusual Barcelona at Chandal (Carrer d’en Tantarantana, 16, Barcelona) will also receive a special gift created together with Yiayia: two exclusive postcards and two enamel pins designed especially for the occasion.
Some objects end up saying far more about a city than any conventional travel guide ever could. And The Unusual Barcelona was born precisely from that idea: creating a publication capable of capturing a more creative, everyday and visually stimulating Barcelona through the places, people and projects genuinely shaping the city’s current cultural scene.
For the next few days, anyone buying The Unusual Barcelona at Chandal will receive a special edition pack created in collaboration with Yiayia, including two postcards and two exclusive pins.
The collaboration brings together two creative universes that, although rooted in different cities and contexts, share a remarkably similar sensibility around design, food, objects and a distinctly Mediterranean way of understanding visual culture.
Much more than a Barcelona guide
Curated by Cecilia Camacho, editor and creative director of CC/magazine, The Unusual Barcelona presents itself as a hybrid between a journal and a travel guide. Published in English and conceived as a collectible editorial object, the publication gathers interviews, stories, editorials and carefully selected recommendations that explore Barcelona from a far more intimate and contemporary perspective.
The fourth edition includes more than 400 addresses organised by neighbourhood and category: restaurants, cafés, bakeries, bars, hotels, shops, galleries, museums and cultural spaces that help readers understand today’s Barcelona beyond the obvious routes and tourist clichés.
But what makes The Unusual Barcelona especially interesting is not only its selection of places. The publication also works as a portrait of the city’s creative scene through interviews and collaborations with figures such as photographer Salva López, artist Chidy Wayne, architecture studio Mesura and Flowers by Bornay.
Alongside them, the guide also includes personal recommendations shared by voices connected to art, design and culture, including Núria Val (Rowse), Helena Agustí (La Culture House), Verònica Fuerte (Hey Studio) and Inés Sans (Casa Bonay), among others.
All of this is accompanied by particularly refined art direction: Fedrigoni papers, exposed Japanese binding and an edition conceived to be kept and collected somewhere between a magazine and an editorial design object rather than a quick travel guide.
The visual universe of Yiayia
The collaboration also introduces the visual language of Yiayia & Friends, the project created by Greek studio Beetroot around the figure of the “yiayia” — the Greek grandmother.
Far from functioning as a nostalgic tribute, Yiayia operates as a creative platform exploring the relationship between food, design, memory, hospitality and Mediterranean culture. Through publications, objects, recipes, collaborations and graphic pieces, the project transforms deeply everyday elements — a shared table, a family recipe, a tablecloth, a piece of fruit or a domestic gesture — into part of a recognisable and highly distinctive visual language.
This approach has positioned Beetroot as one of the most interesting studios within the contemporary European creative landscape, particularly thanks to its ability to connect gastronomy, branding, editorial design and visual culture through an emotional, warm and instantly recognisable perspective.
Yiayia’s universe constantly references Mediterranean summers, markets, long lunches, colour, shared meals and a certain popular aesthetic reinterpreted through an entirely contemporary lens. And it is precisely that visual world that also appears throughout the postcards and pins created for this collaboration with The Unusual Barcelona.
Small objects that speak about cities
Beyond the gift itself, the collaboration also functions as a conversation between two very similar ways of understanding editorial objects and design.
On one side, The Unusual Barcelona proposes a very specific vision of Barcelona through places, images, interviews and recommendations filtered through personal experience and aesthetic sensitivity. On the other, Yiayia works precisely around the ability certain everyday objects have to activate memories, sensations and ways of living deeply connected to the Mediterranean.
Chandal as a meeting point
The collaboration takes place in one of the spaces that best represents the intersection between independent publishing, graphic design and visual culture in Barcelona.
Over the years, Chandal has become one of the city’s most interesting bookstores and concept stores for anyone passionate about magazines, photography books, contemporary design, typography, art and hard-to-find publications.
More than simply a shop, Chandal functions almost like an informal meeting point for a large part of Barcelona’s creative community. A place where international publications, independent projects and carefully curated editorial objects coexist naturally.
As mentioned, from today until stock lasts, anyone purchasing The Unusual Barcelona at Chandal in Barcelona will receive the two exclusive postcards and two enamel pins created by Yiayia together with the publication.
A small special edition connecting Barcelona, Greece and the Mediterranean through design and through the kinds of objects that somehow end up staying with us much longer than expected.
Enjoy!
(*) Photos: Fabrizio Colque.
