Una storia da scrivere, anzi in fase di scrittura

Maddalena Dalla Mura; Raimonda Riccini; Carlo Vinti

Maddalena Dalla Mura Università degli Studi di Ferrara https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3903-3673
Raimonda Riccini Università Iuav di Venezia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2490-9732
Carlo Vinti Università di Camerino https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8513-5200

Keywords: Digital, Graphic Design, History Making

Abstract

The issue aims to contribute to the historical study and understanding of a phenomenon – the advent of the digital – that has radically redefined the conceptual and operational scenario of contemporary design. Thirty years after the desktop publishing revolution, the journal explores the longest period of intersection, convergence and tension that was produced when graphic design “made contact” with electronic and digital technologies and media. Through the reconstruction and discussion of specific cases and experiences, the articles examine the impact of the various innovations that were introduced from the 1950s to the new millennium on the profession and on the very idea of graphic design.
As a whole, the research studies, essays and micro-histories featured in this issue, on the one hand, illuminate how the new tools and media challenged and transformed from within the production chain and the boundaries of graphic design, including the field of design education; on the other, they highlight the slow process of cultural assimilation and the resistance to a change that forced designers to deeply reconsider the technical nature of their practice.

Author Biographies

Maddalena Dalla Mura, Università degli Studi di Ferrara

She carries out research in the fields of design and graphic design history and museum studies. With an MA in Preservation of Cultural Heritage (2000), in 2010 she received her PhD in Design Sciences from the Università Iuav di Venezia. She has since collaborated with the Design and Museology research group at the same university. From 2012 to 2015 she collaborated on several research projects at the Faculty of Design and Art of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, where she has also taught Languages and Theories of Visual Communication. Since 2016/2017 she teaches Design history at the Università degli studi di Ferrara. She is associate editor of the design history journal «AIS/Design: Storia e Ricerche».
www.maddamura.eu

Raimonda Riccini, Università Iuav di Venezia

Raimonda Riccini is a Full Professor at the Università Iuav di Venezia, where she also coordinates the PhD program in Design Sciences and the Design & Museology research group. She is a co-founder and current President of the Italian Association of Design Historians (AIS/Design) and since 2013 she has been editor-in-chief of the online journal «AIS/Design. Storia e Ricerche». In 2013 she promoted the first Italian Forum of PhD programs in Design. She has published extensively on the history of design. Her recent publications include: Artificio e trasparenza: Il corpo sulla scena degli oggetti, in Il corpo umano sulla scena del design (ed. M. Ciammaichella, Il Poligrafo 2015); Il progetto senza storia? Le scienze umane nella didattica delle scuole di design, in Storia hic et nunc: La formazione dello storico del design (eds. P.P. Peruccio and D. Russo, Allemandi 2015); ‘Let’s not forget the kitchen’: How design has transformed the domestic hearth, in Kitchens & Invaders (ed. G. Celant, Electa 2015); Design e immaginario. Oggetti, immagini e visioni fra rappresentazione e progetto (co-editor with P. Proverbio, Il Poligrafo 2016) and the proceedings of the 2016 AIS/Design conference Angelica e Bradamante. Le donne del design (Il Poligrafo 2017).

Carlo Vinti, Università di Camerino

He is a researcher in the field of the History of design and visual communication. He is an assistant professor at the Università degli Studi di Camerino (School of Architecture and Design “E. Vittoria”). After earning his PhD at the School of Advanced Studies in Venice (2006), he became an adjunct professor and research fellow at the Università Iuav di Venezia. Since 2009, he has coordinated the project titled Comunicare l’impresa (www.houseorgan.net) with Giorgio Bigatti. He is currently an associate editor for the «AIS/Design. Storia e Ricerche» online journal and member of the editorial board of «Progetto Grafico» magazine.
His publications include: Gli Anni dello Stile Industriale 1948-1965 (Marsilio, 2007), L’impresa del design: lo stile Olivetti (Loccioni 2010), the chapter A Historiography of Italian Design (with Maddalena Dalla Mura) in Made in Italy: Rethinking a Century of Italian Design (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), Grafica Italiana dal 1945 a oggi («Artedossier» Giunti, 2016), as well as several essays and articles included in books, catalogues and periodicals. In 2012, with Giorgio Camuffo and Mario Piazza, he co-curated the 5th edition of the Triennale Design Museum in Milan, TDM5: Grafica Italiana, and the exhibition catalogue (Corraini).

A History in the Making

Abstract

Author Biographies