«Because You don’t Know How Real People Choose a Kitchen»

Photography Between Graphic Design and Art Direction in Made in Italy

Abstract

Since the sixties, the relationship between photographers and graphic designers has undergone a rapid evolution within the Italian advertising scenario. Photography quickly acquires a cardinal role in the advertising communications, while the graphic designers – until the fifties the undisputed protagonists of the visual layout – begin to consider their contribution increasingly linked to the art direction. The dialogue with the photographers allows graphic designers to reconsider their contribution in the construction of commercial communication – starting from this period, a prerogative of Anglo-Saxon advertising agencies present in Italy – and the relationship with the end-users. The design of Made in Italy, between the sixties and eighties, offers a broad point of view from which it is possible to analyze the maturation of the dialogue among graphic designers, agencies and photographers. In particular, this essay, starting from the analysis of primary sources, tries to reconstruct the dialogue between the art director Fritz Tschirren and the photographer Jean Pierre Maurer, within the GGK and STZ agencies.