Graphics are an essential chapter in the history of Italian design. Besides communicating, interpreting and translating reality into visual forms, the discipline has played an important role in forming the identity and culture of modern Italy.
Dedicated then to Italian graphic design in all its various forms is TDM 5: Grafica italiana (Italian Graphics), 5th edition of the Triennale Design Museum catalogue.
The book takes on the difficult task of uniting the vast production by Italian graphic designers from the past century to the present. It has been divided into nine sections (nine, like the Muses, noble representatives of the supreme ideal of Art): Letters, Books, Magazines, Culture and Politics, Advertising, Packaging, Visual Identity, Signposting, Film and Video.
A colour for each section and a spectrum of colours is created on the three sides of the book to set off a collection of graphic works that offers an important insight into the customs and history of Italy: not only posters but a vast selection of materials ranging from typefaces to trademarks, magazines, leaflets, brochures and books by major Italian publishers, coordinated image manuals, signposts, product packaging and the first examples of video graphics. There are some great names – it would be impossible to list them all.
TDM 5: Grafica italiana, edited by Giorgio Camuffo, Mario Piazza, and Carlo Vinti under the direction of Silvana Annicchiarico, pays tribute to the creativity of Italian graphic design and is an excellent opportunity to illustrate events, figures and phenomena that have accompanied and supported the cultural, social, economic and political development of the Nation, and to make this wealth of design known and accessible to non-specialists as well.
A detailed look at the history of Italian graphic design and its traditions which, by connecting past and present, offers an occasion to increase critical awareness of new and existing products and tools of visual culture that are now commonplace in our daily lives.
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