upon project
From coming up with creative direction ideas to producing actual content, I help tell stories and invent innovative ways to communicate, so that the past, rather than being boring, is always treasured, told with a fresh approach and translated into the contemporary. I use cultural inspirations to spin new, unexpected tales.
Libri Belli is a great example of what I can do, an original project I came up with and work on from A to Z, from its image to its content to its editorial line. Created in 2017 as an Instagram page dedicated to discovering and rediscovering Italian books from the past, over the years Libri Belli (which means “beautiful books”) has become a reference point for the history of Italian publishing culture, describing wonderful auteur editions and graphics, lesser-known and out-of-print publications, long-forgotten collections, and curious editorial endeavors. In the years since its creation, with Libri Belli I’ve organized exhibitions and events all over Italy, done collaborations, and moderated live gatherings with artists, experts and enthusiasts. Today its Instagram page has around 40,000 followers.
These, instead, are some of the projects I’ve created together with the Pop-Eye Studio, with whom I often collaborate, providing them with creative direction ideas, and conceiving and producing content:
Sugar Music, historic record label and Italian music publisher since 1932, chose us to come up with a new face for their identity. I contributed to the visual research for the new logo we created for them, and I came up with their new payoff: “Per amore della musica” (“For the love of music”).
For Milano Music Week, we developed the visual identity and coordinated image of the last two editions (2022 and 2023) and conceived the event’s website. I worked on researching visual and inspirational ideas for the two campaigns, one graphic and the other photographic, which were posted all over the city and online.
Franco Maria Ricci, Italy’s foremost art editor and the author of magnificent volumes starting in the 1960s as well as the “black pearl” that is the magazine FMR, called us in to build his online presence. We translated the publishing house’s rich “paper repertory” of images into a digital identity, creating its first website and launching its social media channels, whose editorial plan and communication activities I personally curate.
With Studio Fludd I recently worked on the project for Ca’ Select, a new location inaugurated in Venice and connected to Select, a historic brand of Italian bitters. I searched for illustrations and vintage iconographies of the city to be integrated with the interior of the display area’s installations, and I coordinated the purchase of vintage photographs from local and international archives.
For Cultivar I worked on researching Naples in the Belle Époque and provided them with both creative ideas for the branding and publishing ideas for the social storytelling of ScottoJonno, a new café-bistrot created in the city, in the location once home to the café chantant of the same name in the Galleria Principe.
and beyond
Research is my true passion, and it’s at the very heart of my work. If you’re looking for images, ideas or inspiration for a publishing project, or you simply need to connect the dots in a specific topic, I’m likely just what you need. If it also has to do with the past, with archives, with lesser or rarely explored stories, then you’ve definitely come to the right place.
ICONOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
I can help you find a world of images, be they contemporary or vintage, connected to a particular topic, or to be used directly within projects.
Specifically:
‧ images that can be used as reference or provide creative inspiration.
‧ images and visual materials that are under Creative Commons licenses or are entirely copyright-free and can therefore be freely reproduced in artistic and communication projects.
I work on commission for private clients, companies and institutions. I’ve collaborated with such creative and artistic minds as director Virgilio Villoresi, designer Sara Ricciardi’s studio, and fashion brand La DoubleJ’s style office. I’ve also applied it to publishing projects and publications, recently conducting iconographic research for Zero x Slam Jam’s Storia Vera project and helping find just the right images to illustrate book covers by the publisher Adelphi.
CONTENT RESEARCH
I also work comprehensively on editorial research, providing a wealth of ideas and content, tracking down first-hand accounts and sources, and contributing to their study and editorial development. A recent example is the research I conducted with author Luca Pitoni on designer Anita Klinz for the book Ostinata bellezza. Anita Klinz, la prima art director italiana ([Stubborn beauty: Anita Klinz, Italy’s first female art director] Fondazione Mondadori, 2022). My research lasted over two long years, delving into archived materials and private documents that had never before been published, and forming the very first complete biographical and professional profile of the woman who can authentically be defined as Italy’s first female art director.
While researching, I come across worlds of curious discoveries, images and stories. I collect and describe them on my Telegram channel, Curiouser and Curiouser.
