Within the culture of design, it is possible to find, from the earliest stages of 19th century technological development, the presence of two directions: the first is synergetic with the industrial production model, the second is more critical of the imbalances this has caused. The awareness that production processes modified environmental conditions dates back to the classical age, but the effectiveness of the search for solutions was not constant in the different historical moments.
During the 20th century, the two visions (that of collaborative problem-solving and that of opposition), developed theories and projects that fuelled, within the disciplines of design, a debate that has not yet been historicised. Just as that broad movement of ideas, supported by bottom-up communication projects, which, by influencing the economic-political culture through public opinion, has promoted the emergence of legislative constraints that have also become guiding elements for the development of industrial products, does not yet appear historicised.

This AIS/Design Journal: History and Research issue, edited by Fulvio Irace, is entirely devoted to the legendary exhibition “Italy: the New Domestic Landscape”, conceived and curated by Emilio Ambasz and held at MoMA New York in 1972.

It aims to provide new points of view and new documents on the origins and intentions of the show, its graphic restitution, the installations, the contributions welcomed in the catalog, the sponsorships and interference of institutions and companies, and to be also a tribute to its curator.

This issue of “AIS/Design Journal: History and Research”, edited by Giampiero Bosoni, Elena Dellapiana and Jeffrey Schnapp, is the first in the new directorship.
It is a miscellaneous, by-invitation-only issue. Under the umbrella of “Phenomenologies of Design”, it brings together essays that, starting from robust archival foundations of a different nature, agglutinate around the phenomena that make up the definition of design and its languages of reference: semiotics, storytelling, and then product, exhibition design, fashion, graphics, and the protagonists.

This issue, which represents the latest under the direction of Raimonda Riccini, is presented in a particular form. The associate editors who have conducted the magazine over the years have chosen, from among the published essays, the one that in their opinion is particularly significant and to justify their choice with a short introductory text. The result is a small representative anthology of the issues published so far.  In the hope thus of offering the reader a repertoire of themes and authors who have contributed to increasing our historical knowledge through methods, sources, contents, and others that have opened up new paths of study.
Furthermore, this issue celebrates the centenary of the birth of Alberto Rosselli (1921-1976) with some texts that reread his contributions and experience, in particular, that of Stile Industria.

Through the theme of "relational geographies", the intention is to enhance studies and research that take typical approaches of the social sciences for the understanding and explanation of design. This, in fact, in addition to being made up of "things", materialized structures (such as the nation or the community), individuals and mechanisms, is composed above all of the networks and social facts: an intricate and complex set of intersections, a network of flows and of relations...

The issue on the history of design photography, edited by Paola Proverbio and Raimonda Riccini, was born on the impulse of a finally explicit and full recognition, which occurred in recent times, of the role of photography in the development of design culture...

In this first double issue of the magazine, entitled Social Design. Design and the "common good", edited by Marinella Ferrara, Francesco E. Guida, Mario Piazza, Paola Proverbio and Raimonda Riccini, almost as a challenge, an attempt was made to break the orthodoxy of a linear approach to history.
In this orientation, which tends to bring historical themes closer to us, Social Design offers itself in a fitting way for its being a contemporary and complex question, broad, ambiguous and controversial, even if only for the different synonymous expressions with where it presents itself: ethical design, humanitarian design, design for the community, design of public utility, design for extended users, design for sustainability, ...

This issue has been awarded the honourable mention at the XXVII Compasso d'Oro (June 2022) and has been selected for the ADI Design Index 2021 (held by ADI, Associazione per il Disegno Industriale), section "Ricerca teorica, storica, critica e progetti editoriali" ("Theoretical, historical, critical research and editorial projects"). Since November 15, 2023, it is listed among the Lombardy Excellences by the Lombardy Region within the selected products and projects of the ADI Design Index 2021.

Issue 11 of «AIS / Design. Storia e Ricerche », edited by Fiorella Bulegato, Dario Scodeller and Carlo Vinti, proposes the critical rereading of some "classic" texts of design history published between the 70s of the twentieth century and the early 2000s that are believed to be particularly significant for the research methodology, the form of writing adopted and the relevance of the topics addressed. These are volumes published in Italy, which have contributed to forming the very idea of ​​the history of design and are considered a starting point for the construction of national historiography of the discipline.

After over four years, «AIS/Design. Storia e Ricerche» celebrates its tenth issue – edited by Fiorella Bulegato, Maddalena Dalla Mura, Raimonda Riccini e Carlo Vinti – with some methodological considerations on the study and use of primary sources.
It is appropriate to focus attention back on the historian’s primary working tools, sources and archives, at a time in which we are witnessing an apparently contradictory set of phenomena and trends in the field of historical elaboration and analysis.

This issue of «AIS/Design. Storia e Ricerche», edited by Raimonda Riccini, is in some ways anomalous. The proposed theme constitutes a sort of first experimentation for our journal. The novelty is that of having built an entire issue around a single character: Enzo Frateili (Rome 1914-Milan 1993). He is a little-known if not unknown to most people today, but who represented one of the most interesting and vital voices in the culture of design and architecture in Italy in the second half of the twentieth century...

The issue – edited by Maddalena Dalla Mura, Raimonda Riccini e Carlo Vinti – 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...

The articles in this issue of the magazine - edited by Fiorella Bulegato and Dario Scodeller - reconstruct the workspace, together with the methods and attitudes developed by the designers in their relationships with the many different figures that make up the "design system", whether working within manufacturing companies, or as freelancers, in the role of entrepreneur, or in collective experiences...

«AIS/Design. Storia e ricerche» n. 6, is dedicated to the theme Designers and Writing in the Twentieth Century and it is the first issue edited by Fiorella Bulegato, Maddalena Dalla Mura and Carlo Vinti.
In recent years we have witnessed a renewed acknowledgement of the value of writing for designers, and the issue of the critical use of writing as related to design and as a design mode has emerged on several levels. Taking the observation of this interest in writing as a point of departure, Issue n. 6 of the magazine intends to reflect on how writing was practised by designers in the twentieth century, and on the many different ways it has been used for both personal and private, operational, theoretical-critical, historic, programmatic, educational and pedagogical purposes...

How to deal with the delicate relationship between design and food? The title of this special issue of the journal, edited by Rosa Chiesa, Ali Filippini and Gianluca Grigatti, does not reserve too many surprises with respect to the contents. We are living in a moment in which the term food design, a category with uncertain boundaries and on the definition of which we are still discussing, together with the more general theme of food is absolutely widespread, and sometimes even abused. This general and specialist interest in food/project and the food supply chain emerges from the thrust of growing mass attention around food and at the same time coexists with the proliferation of a series of publications and exhibitions on the subject, nourished today more than never from the direct relationship with the theme of Expo 2015 ...

This fourth issue of «AIS/Design. Storia e Ricerche», edited by Giampiero Bosoni and Marinella Ferrara, addresses the theme of the design of materials read in the historical evolution of the culture of industrial design, and beyond, in Italy.

The third issue of «AIS/Design. Storia e Ricerche», the first monographic of this journal and edited by Fiorella Bulegato and Maddalena Dalla Mura, is dedicated to the history of Italian design read through the history of museums, exhibitions and archives. These places of mediation are recounted in the various contributions for the role they played in the definition, diffusion and discussion of design in Italy.

The second number has arrived. It is once again a miscellaneous number, rich in ideas, themes and authors different by generation, approaches and points of view. A wealth that the magazine promotes, without wanting to impose a monochromatic vision of the history of design, a wealth that is required – as a common and essential element – to be the result of scientifically based original research, a reflection work not self-referential, but open and dialectical.
In the pre-typographic era, the schedule was the parchment, tablet or page from which the first inscription was scraped away in order to trace another subsequent one. On closer inspection, there is nothing more contemporary than the idea of ​​palimpsest in the ways of digital writing.

Constellations, the title of the first issue of «AIS / Design. Storia e Ricerche», summarizes the intention of the journal to open our eyes to different strands and themes, even distant from each other, of Design Histories. To give space both to the oldest and most consolidated sectors and to the most recent areas of interest. But openness does not mean getting lost in a nebula whose boundaries are constantly moving, losing sight of the area pertaining to design, expanding its jurisdiction over the territories of others, expanding the time of its birth backwards, as if we were unable to confront ourselves with its historical identity, continually disowning it. Openness means – in the words of Siegfried Giedion (1967) – to be aware that the facts we subject to historical scrutiny are “like the constellations of the stars. The historian cannot trace the course of events like the astronomer. But he has one point in common with him: that new constellations and previously invisible worlds continually emerge. And how the astronomer must remain eternally in his observation post”.