military landscapes

Last summer, just in front of the extraordinary seascape of La Maddalena and Caprera islands, in the Northern Sardinia, “Military Landscape”, a scientific meeting about the decommissioned fortresses, air bases, ports, etc., took place. Its aim is was design a future for many nice building and infrastructures, often placed in some of the most wonderful places in the world. It was organized by Donatella Fiorino, a professor at Cagliari University. I designed the visual identity of the meeting. Here the cover of the Skira book is shown.

[ La scorsa estate, di fronte al mare straordinario delle isole di La Maddalena e Caprera, nel nord Sardegna, è stato organizzato il convegno “Military Landscapes” (Paesaggi Militari), incentrato sulle architetture militari dismesse, come fortezze, porti e aeroporti, bunker, etc. Il suo scopo era quello di disegnare un futuro possibile per queste strutture, molte delle quali esteticamente pregevolissime e spesso ubicate in siti eccezionali. Il convegno è stato organizzato da Donatella Fiorino, professore all’Università di Cagliari. Tra le declinazioni dell’identità visiva che ho progettato, qui viene presentata la copertina del volume edito da Skira. ]

military landscapes

 

 

new sardinian fonts

In the summer of 2015, the Autonomous Region of Sardinia asked two groups from the Departments of Architecture of the Universities of Sassari and Cagliari – the first one coordinated by Nicolò Ceccarelli, the second by me – to develop a new visual identity of the island for Expo Milano 2015. This identity will become the visual spine of the communication strategy of Sardinia in the coming years. First I designed a set of typefaces with a strong local identity. I called them Bàttoro (after the name of the traditional weaving from which they take inspiration) and PB1 (as pibione, the Sardinian word for the weaving dot). The equation pixel = pibione established the modular and serial way of the graphic research. The created fonts are decorative, good for headlines and logos or, like you can see, ricursive and intertwining patterns. It’s another way to get interesting typographic textures. Here is shown the claim “Sardegna isola senza fine” (Sardinia endless island), that I created as well. For longer texts, which need to be red without any difficulties, we used the Open Sans. In addition to the first two sets, I wanted a set of dingbats made up of figures of traditional Sardinian weaving, plus some new and imaginative, specifically designed. With my team of collaborators (Matteo Buccoli, Francesca Oggiano, Claudio Rossi), we designed a set of figures called Sardinia Dingbats, with which you can process virtual tapestries typing on the keyboard. The serialization of the compositions follows a way I had already studied for the typographical tapestries and these typefaces give to designers and craftsmen a powerful tool for creating ever new combinations.

battoro bisacciabattoro su grigio4sardinia dingbats per expoarazzi-typo-sardegna-14battoro-per-exposardinia-dingbatsIMG_2374 bpattern sardinia dingbats 2pattern sardinia dingbats 1pattern sardinia dingbats 3pattern sardinia dingbats 4

marrakech handicrafts design exhibition

During the last week of September and the first of October, I was in Marrakech (Morocco) with Roberta Morittu, a celebrate sardinian and international designer involved in studying and designing mediterranean handicrafts since many years, and some of my best students at Cagliari University (Alessandro Congiu, Claudio Rossi and Francesca Savona). Nicolò Ceccarelli, Marco Sironi and Carlo Turri of Sassari/Alghero University were with us with a group of their students and realized some fo the objects together with Cagliari collegues. We had to create also the identity for an exhibit at Dar Bellarj, one of the most charming place inside the Medina. Handicrafts of moroccan tradition were re-designed and interpreted by the students from Cagliari, Sassari/Alghero, Florence and Milan Universities and from Esav, an important local school of design. They made their project working together the moroccan artisans. The University of Sassari/Alghero also realized an amazing video which could be seen here. The Autonomous Region of Sardinia sponsorized the whole mission. We concentrated on the figure of the storks (Dar Bellarj is also known as The Stork Hospital), stylizing them in several patterns composed with figures similar to the pieces of the the moroccan mosaics, using the same colors of the place: sand, red, black, white.

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international summer school of architecture

During the first two weeks of september, 2012, the University of Cagliari, Faculty of Architecture, together with the Carbonia-Iglesias Province administration, organized an international summer school of architecture, focusing on the wild nature and ancient history of the Sulcis. A place were the hard work underground, into the coal and silver mines or on the sea, in the tuna fishing boats, show an extraordinary strength and pathos. Many international Masters of architecture, art, photography (Eduardo Souto de Moura, Hans Kollhoff, Jannis Kounellis, Mimmo Jodice among them) taught how to preserve wildlife and history suggesting a way to sustainable economic development. Here are shown some graphic works designed for the event.

locandina souto 50x70

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