Made in Italy - Mind Map

Above is the mind map of what my group's vision of what Italian design is from a Canadian perspective. We believe that Italian design is represented by five keywords, which are Emotion, Communication, Experience, Innovation, and Tradition. If you would to download a copy of this map, click here for the PDF version.

- Alan, Michelle, Lindsay

Portrait Round-up

Here's a quick portrait round-up of just a few of all the interesting people we've had the opportunity to meet.

Laboratorio della Creativita e dello Stile Italiani

Macro Museum, Roma - Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

"Creativity Lab" at the Macro Museum

Our Italian Design Grand Tour is slowly coming to an end and here we are in our last week, reflecting on what we've seen and making connections with what we've learned. It almost feels like our studio back home: the long hours, the constant snacking, the uncomfortable stools, and being surrounded by our fellow classmates. Then again this familiarity is interrupted by the high windows and the organic desk that can cater to group work or individual work. 

Creating and Preserving Brand Heritage

Various corporate museums throughout Florence and Milan - June

Richard Ginori, Piaggio & Salvatore Ferragamo

Kartell & Alessi

A corporate museum is a type of institution that combines elements of a profit-making organization with a traditional museum, giving the public a glance into the past, present and future of a company. We've visited several corporate museums on this trip, each one taking a different approach in exhibiting the evolution of the products, people and organization of the company.

The Importance of Communication in Design Education

Milan, Florence - June 10th, May 31st, June 9th (respectively)

The photography studio at Politecnico di Milano

Education in Italy emphasizes the importance of communication as a strong companion to design. The schools here teach students cinematography, photography, writing and graphic design. It is important that students are able to express the idea behind the product in order to sell it to both the consumer and the manufacturer.

Sapienza University of Rome, Presentation of Prof. Orlandi (Director of DATA Department), Lecture of Prof. Rullo

Sapienza University, DATA Department, Rome - Monday, June 20th

 - Alan, Michelle, Lindsay

An excerpt from LAGO APPARTAMENTO - A Living Showroom

This is an excerpt from a book about LAGO's Appartamento concept. The book covers the story behind the appartamento concept and some short dialogues and reflections tangential to this idea. The book is currently floating around, so if you are interested in reading more from it, come find me, it might be in my hands. Anyway, I've copied an interesting section regarding a dialogue with Marco Bettiol (VIU) about the future and changes in the design world. Enjoy!

 

Re-inventing Made in Italy Dialogue with Marco Bettiol

               With the appartamento, LAGO presented a highly innovative project and comment on the new values of design. In the Appartamento we organized a series of seminars, where we addressed the various elements that seemed to us to be the important factors for design – now and in the future.

                During these seminars a number of interesting issues emerged regarding the evolution of design. A particularly interesting one was the conceptualisation of design in terms of it being a sense-making activity. We must now move from designing objects to designing meanings, because the new values of design are not about producing more and more objects (the world is already overflowing with them) but instead to produce meanings and to focus more on the immaterial side of the product. We believe that design has to be more about making sense of the world around us and to provide and create the new services and strategies that are really needed. Also of course products, but those products will be directly related to meanings.