Program

SIGNS, contemporary Italian graphics is an authorial exhibition that proposes from time to time a selection of Italian graphic designers, different for registries, culture, training, languages. A dialogue between different worlds that reflect on the many souls of the graphic arts profession, where differences are to be considered a cultural value. The authors/studies selected for this 2026 edition are: Atto, Chiara Zhu, Dario Carta, eee studio, Elia Barbieri, esc design, Federica Ricci, FIRM, Giga Design Studio, Giorgia Cadeddu, Giulia Boccarossa, pop-eye studio. The exhibition will be open until 8.11.2026 during the opening hours of ADI Design Museum.

The exhibition project BOOKSHOCK is part of the research path developed by Oggetto Libro during five editions and seventeen exhibitions held nationally, in which the dialogue between two now complementary worlds was explored: that of design and that of art. Within this context, the book is assumed as a critical and design device, whose nature exceeds the editorial dimension to configure itself as a complex form of expression. The exhibition proposes artist's books that represent a surprising example of how the book can transform, taking on unexpected forms. Made with heterogeneous materials and techniques, these works are real artifacts, suspended between object and sculpture. Design books, which testify to the persistent centrality of the book as a tool for communication, design and cultural transmission; and a section of hybrid books, created through the use of technique — in all its possible variations — in which artistic and design issues converge. Works that trace tradition, with a breath of contemporary poetry, works that allow new perspectives of experimentation, which respond to the desire for innovation of the new generations. Finally — in absolute preview — the exhibition proposes, alongside the artifacts and printed copies, a selection of immaterial works generated by means of artificial intelligence, capable of surprising and redefining the very concept of a book. In this context, BOOKSHOCK is configured as a critical device: a place where the book, in its many forms, allows us to examine the conditions of contemporary cultural production and the forms of its transmission. The exhibition will be open until 8.11.2026 during the opening hours of ADI Design Museum.

The selection of Best Book Design from All Over the World arrives in Italy as part of the International Graphic Biennial at ADI Design Museum. The exhibition makes visible an international geography of publishing production where the book emerges as the result of a complex chain that contributes to the construction of a design and public object. The exhibition takes on the character of an inaugural moment for the Italian context. Starting thisyear, Italy will join this international network of exchange and recognition for the first time: in fact, Beautiful Italian Books was born in 2026, which collects and curates a selection of editorial projects that will participate for the first time in Best Book Design from All Over the World in Leipzig. The exhibition is therefore configured as the opening of a new space for observation and comparison, aimed at reading the book in its final and total configuration, in which content and form are mutually supportive and in which conception, editorial project, design, printing and packaging participate in the construction of a unitary entity, the result of a concrete collaboration between different skills and professionalism. The exhibition will be open until 8.11.2026 during the opening hours of ADI Design Museum.

Between the end of the twenties and the forties of the last century, visual culture in Italy definitively broke with decorativism and with the ornamentation of Liberty to aim towards a rational simplification of forms: pure geometries, clear volumes, elementary harmonies. This modernist season is not only witnessed by the well-known graphic artifacts of the protagonists, but is also documented by important peripheral experiences - not for this reason secondary. Compared to the international scene of the time, Italy occupies a marginal position in the production of print fonts. Yet, a more in-depth investigation returns a much more articulated and varied picture: a multitude of alphabets, now forgotten, designed and produced by large foundries as well as by minor companies that, intercepting the innovative thrust of that cultural season, have spread their languages throughout the territory in a capillary way. Modern typography has thus penetrated the productive fabric of the country, reaching even the most provincial realities. Italian Modernist Alphabets offers a unique and comprehensive survey of a fragmentary and largely unexplored heritage. The exhibition recomposes and organises this material – wood and metal typefaces produced in Italy between the 1930s and 1940s – to return it to new possibilities of reading, comparison and contemporary interpretation. The exhibition features a careful selection of these materials, many of which are unpublished and in some cases preserved in unique specimens. Movable fonts, samples, prints and period documents bear witness to a vernacular design culture: often local knowledge, which comes from below, developed in small workshops, on the border between industry and craftsmanship. These characters survived in the post-war period and remained in use until the 1970s. The basis of this exhibition is a research begun fifteen years ago by Luca Lattuga, collector of typefaces, founder of Anonima Impressori and author of Alfabeti Modernisti Italiani published by Lazy Dog Press in 2025. The book presents, documents and reproduces in its entirety over 120 alphabets found throughout Italy on a long journey between large centres and extreme provinces - almost all of which belong to his personal archive. Far more than a simple historical reconstruction, the exhibition “Italian Modernist Alphabets” therefore offers a look at a constellation of typographic experiments that, far from the great circuits of the history of design, return the complexity of the visual culture of our country. For the entire duration of BIG (22-25.10) at 17:00 there will be a guided tour of the exhibition, at the end of composition and printing at the printing press. The exhibition will be open until 8.11.2026 during the opening hours of ADI Design Museum.

Id-ictionary presents a selection of 70 posters made by designers who are members of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI). The exhibition explores the manifesto as a visual language capable of interpreting and redefining words on the theme of sharing, offering a look at contemporary research in international graphic design. The curatorship of Silvana Amato enhances the dialogue between design cultures, highlighting the communicative and experimental power of author graphics. The exhibition will be open until 8.11.2026 during the opening hours of ADI Design Museum.

A journey of almost five thousand kilometres across Italy: twenty-six encounters and an irregular map built along the way. A research experience, partly planned and partly left to chance, born from meeting people who live by design — of different generations, paths and sensibilities. Each conversation took place in a setting chosen by the other person: before a view, around an improvised table, walking, eating together. Space is never neutral: it enters the words, changes the time of listening and builds relationships. At the centre of the exhibition is the van that made the journey, gradually becoming home, studio and silent witness. Around it, the project takes shape through materials, images and traces of the conversations gathered on the road. The journey became a book, published in 2025 by Bug Edizioni + Lupetti Editore, that keeps the spontaneity of speech and the beauty of the imperfect, without turning conversation into final answers. It is not a collection of interviews, nor an essay on graphic design: it is an open space of questions, doubts, detours and people. In early 2026 the van set out again, to cross Italy once more and take the book on the road.

Muddy Dance is an exhibition celebrating the football movement. The players seem to perform a choreographed dance on a muddy field, tumbling and rolling in search of the ball... or not? This is an exhibition about football for lovers of art and design and, at the same time, an exhibition for all football fans. In Muddy Dance, Erik Kessels proposes a new gesture of re-appropriation of vernacular photography. Move the attention of the images from the ball to the movement: by erasing the ball from each shot, it transforms the game actions into spontaneous choreographies. Muddy Dance by Kessels brings to the fore the beauty of players' movements and transforms this popular sport into a real art form. The exhibition will be open until 8.11.2026 during the opening hours of ADI Design Museum.

An intensive one-day workshop dedicated to the radical observation of the city and the construction of a collective urban archive. Each group receives exactly 100 meters of a street in Milan. Nothingelse. The task is to explore and document them in an almost obsessive way, looking within a seemingly ordinary fragment for its own key to reading and visual storytelling. Every detail can become narrative matter: every screw, every writing, every number, every surface, every shadow, every sign, every crack, every trace, every imperfection. The goal is to build a visual alphabet of one street 100 meters at a time, recognizing, selecting and relating the elements encountered, transforming what normally goes unnoticed into a system of signs capable of telling the story of a place. The morning is dedicated to field research: observation, collection, photography, measurement, cataloguing and interpretation. In the afternoon, at Studio FM, the collected material is transformed through graphic experimentation into an editorial artifact. Each group will thus build its own page, sequence or micro-publication. Individually, each project tells 100 meters; together, all the artifacts make up a collective book A research and design exercise that starts from a minimum portion of space to arrive at a larger question: how can you tell a city through its details? The number of participants is limited. How to register for the workshop will be communicated soon. Cost: € 20

AIAP Community is an AIAP event open to members, who present their visual communication projects and strengthen a sense of community — collective growth, exchange, reflection, experiment — in communication design. Selected designers each have 15 minutes, speaking not only about content and motives but about the backstage: ferment and impulse, dialogue with the client, intuitions and unexpected turns.

The Retwork of the Festivals was born from an idea of Graphic Days and AIAP with the aim of relating the Italian realities that promote the culture of communication design and visual cultures, favouring the exchange of experiences, skills, projects and opportunities. The public presentation of the informal memorandum of understanding brings together for the first time a series of festivals and initiatives from different Italian cities, united by the desire to contribute to the dissemination of design culture and the enhancement of young talents and Italian visual culture, in Italy and abroad. The talk will also be an opportunity to learn about the realities that have chosen to join the network and share experiences, operating methods and future perspectives: from the circuitry of exhibitions and guests to the sharing of skills and networks, up to the development of new projects and the search for common financing opportunities.

The Systemic Communication of ISIA Roma Design. The path of the design project resembles the preparation of a trip: the most suitable tools are carefully chosen, the objectives are shared with the travel companions and we open ourselves, with curiosity, to the encounter with what we do not yet know. Like any trip, the project takes shape in expectation, develops in experience and continues to live in memory. In the ISIA Roma courses, students develop projects capable of imagining unexplored worlds, giving life to experimental narratives and artifacts with an innovative and visionary character. The research extends from the tangible dimension of reality and the most intimate dimension of consciousness, in a process in which form and content build on each other. ISIA Roma, founded in 1973, is the first public university institute of design in Italy, awarded in 1979 with the Compasso d 'Oro for its educational model.

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Fabiana Candida (Sapienza University of Rome), Sergio Degiacomi Garbero (Politecnico di Torino), Weihuan Hou (Politecnico di Milano), Antonella Rosmino (Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli) give an overview of the research in a comparison conducted by Valeria Bucchetti, Carlo Martino, Daniela Piscitelli, Paolo Tamborrini, referents of the research group “Communication Design” of SID (Italian Design Society). The comparison of points of view will give an account of the forms of experimentation that the university promotes in support of the evolutionary lines of the discipline.

Colour is not a merely aesthetic choice: it is a design tool. This talk explores how colour shapes perception, communication and the effectiveness of a message, with a specific focus on paper.

Designing sensory accessibility in premium packaging Premium packaging speaks in codes: glossy surfaces, tone-on-tone colour, slender type, minimal text. These choices build perceived value, but they can become barriers. Legibility is not only a matter of type size: it is typeface, colour, finish, contrast, material. This meeting follows the packaging design process from the first physical element to the last informative detail: matter and surfaces (glossy or matt films, transparencies, metallisation, flow packs, deformability); colour and contrast as tools of recognition; finishing as a potentially functional, tactile language; typography and label design in wine and spirits. The aim is not to oppose accessibility and desirability, but to show that they can coincide. A readable, tactile, inclusive desirability is today a new form of quality — and of responsibility — for brands.

Between rarity, invention and self-training with Anna Frabotta of Frab's. The meeting aims to enhance the rich collection of magazines preserved by Biblioteca Sormani. The selected magazines will be available to the public who will thus be able to participate in the dialogue between the curator of the meetings, Marta Sironi, historian of graphics and illustration, and Anna Frabotta, journalist and creator of Frab 's, the cultural project dedicated to independent magazines. The library has historically privileged the subscription to numerous magazines also as valuable self-training tools, an aspect that is linked to the recent acquisitions of independent magazines that inform on various specific topics in an often very in-depth way with an extreme attention to all visual aspects. The meeting is part of the program aimed at enhancing some special collections of Sormani on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the library.

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Have you ever wanted to design your own typeface, but didn't know where to start? This intensive weekend workshop is a great opportunity to start designing typefaces. Go beyond choosing the usual fonts from the font menu and create your own! In this two-day course you will learn the basics of designing and generating a variable font with the type design software Glyphs (only for Mac). In the Thursday session we will focus on the basics of creating a font. We'll look at how to design a simple set of uppercase letters, how to effectively manage letter spacing, how to integrate diacritics, and how to use punctuation. Friday we will create a bold version of the same typeface, develop a variable font, and animate it for use in a web browser or desktop application. Workshop registration will be announced shortly.

Italics – Impressioni italiane is a recognition dedicated to contemporary typographic printing in Italy, born from the collaboration between Cabaret Typographie and Bonvini 1909. The exhibition brings together over forty artists, designers, printers, studios, laboratories and archives who today use letterpress as a tool for research and experimentation. Through a selection of limited edition printed posters, the project returns a map of contemporary practices, recounting the encounter between languages, materials, techniques and design approaches. Italics wants to enhance letterpress not only as a historical and artisanal heritage, but as a living design language, capable of reinterpreting tradition and dialoguing with contemporary visual culture.

Presentation event. Reinventing Centrale presents the rebranding projects developed by the students of the Specialist Biennium in Visual Design and Marketing Communication of NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti. Led by lecturer Davide Bignotti, the working groups have rethought the identity of Centrale dell'Acqua di Milano through a strategic approach capable of translating into original and contemporary experiences. Starting from the analysis of the role of the institution - the MM Spa business museum - the students have developed creative territories capable of interpreting the Centrale in an ever new way as a space dedicated to education, culture and in-depth study. The logo, the colour palette, the typographic system, the iconographic language and the layout systems are the tools that give voice and recognition to each different concept of the Centre. The exhibition offers a look at the process of building an identity starting from the students' analysis of the place and structure of the building, highlighting how communication design and branding can contribute to enhancing cultural heritage, strengthening dialogue with the public and stimulating new ways of relating between institutions and communities. Visit hours from 19 to 30 October: Monday and Wednesday 14:00 - 19:30 Friday, Saturday, Sunday 10:00–13:00 • 14:00–19:30

6 urban archigraphy projects by Migliore+Servetto Migliore+Servetto opens the doors of its studio with an exhibition dedicated to urban archigraphy, through six projects that tell a research on the graphic sign as a spatial, environmental and relational matter. Beyond the function of orientation, visual language becomes the architecture of signs: it enters the space, interprets its character and contributes to building its identity. Archigraphy thus becomes a living device, capable of accompanying the experience of places and transforming the perception of the city.

A path of discovery to reopen the dialogue on artistic, architectural and social experimentation The exhibition is dedicated to Operazione Arcevia, a utopian project that involved the creation of an existential community in the Archevian territory. Promoted by the entrepreneur Italo Bartoletti, conceived by the architect Ico Parisi with the support of the curators and art critics Enrico Crispolti and Pierre Restany, and the psychologist Antonio Miotto, involved thirty-three “aesthetic operators” among the most important personalities of the Italian and international cultural scene, with dedicated artistic projects. A pioneering experience, presented at the Venice Biennale in 1976 and exhibited at the Galleria Nazionale d 'Arte Moderna in Rome in 1979. In this process of enhancement, the exhibition Ri-legere Operazione Arcevia. 1972-1976 is in dialogue with the works of Francesco Somaini, who took part in it. Admission for visitors from Via Cassolo, in front of house no. 3. Hours 10:00–13:00 • 14:00–18:00 by reservation: call +39 02 583 117 07 or write to fondazione.somaini@gmail.com

The Systemic Communication of ISIA Roma Design. The path of the design project resembles the preparation of a trip: the most suitable tools are carefully chosen, the objectives are shared with the travel companions and we open ourselves, with curiosity, to the encounter with what we do not yet know. Like any trip, the project takes shape in expectation, develops in experience and continues to live in memory. In the ISIA Roma courses, students develop projects capable of imagining unexplored worlds, giving rise to experimental narratives and artifacts with an innovative and visionary character. The research extends from the tangible dimension of reality and the most intimate dimension of consciousness, in a process in which form and content build on each other. The exhibition IN ITINERE presents the various forms of Systemic Communication of ISIA Roma, through design projects that are together tools of knowledge, exercises of imagination and visions of the possible: Editorial, Type, Identity, Digital, Interaction, Multimedia, Audiovisual, Video Animation, Exhibit, Infographic, Systemic, Advertising. For ISIA Roma, Communication Design is a privileged field of design research, experimentation and development of critical thinking, in which the project becomes a tool for interpreting the present and imagining the future. Founded in 1973 as the first public university institute of design in Italy, awarded in 1979 with the Compasso d 'Oro for its educational model, ISIA Roma Design presents this exhibition on the occasion of the third edition of BIG – Biennale Internazionale Grafica, an event dedicated to visual communication design and contemporary graphic cultures, a place of dialogue between profession, research, training and society. By Mario Rullo and Tommaso Salvatori with Francesco Scagliarini, Barbara Ermeti, Francesco Del Rosso, Antonio Pace, Leonardo Sangiorgi, Antonello Lipori, Alessandro Guariento, Federico Parrella, Nicola Di Cosmo, Bruno Capezzuoli, Ugo Murgia, Raffaele Vella, Guido Lombardo, Francesco Incantalupo, Stefano Cipolla, Paola Manfroni, Assunta Squitieri, Pierluigi Riccio, Giulia Romiti, Stefano Compagnucci, Alberto Improda, Carlo Iannone, Diletta Damiano, Stefano Donati, Emanuele Montelione. IN ITINERE TALKS Meetings with renowned Communication Design professionals, dedicated to students and young professionals. Free entry with a limited number. (Calendar to be defined) IN ITINERE WORKSHOP Project experiences led by Isia Roma professors and PhD students, dedicated to students and young professionals. Free entry with a limited number. (Calendar to be defined)

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Open to the public and addressed to graphic designers and visual communication professionals, the course is dedicated to corporate branding and identity systems for industry and service companies. A practical and critical session on the designer’s role in an organisation’s strategic and identity processes: from the relationship with the client to building a coherent, effective corporate identity. Places are limited. To be given priority, book at aiap@aiap.it Fee: €49, or €19 for AIAP members A certificate of attendance will be issued. Full details

Signs, senses and shared identity Urban archigraphy, understood as a set of signs of function, identity and belonging, is a visual system to be inhabited, which indicates the destinations of arrival and tells what the traveller will find on their journey and why. A cornerstone of urban identity, it defines an inclusive and dynamic language, capable of guiding and, at the same time, generating a sense of community. The intervention opens a reflection on the fundamental role of environmental graphics in shaping the identity of a neighbourhood, behaving as a sort of urban tattoo in the making. What is a neighborhood? An invisible border or a tangle of stories? Where does it start, where does it dissolve, and to what extent does it belong to us? Like the human being, urban archigraphy merges the Kantian intersection between intellect and reason - where the first generates knowledge, while the second meaning - which is accompanied by passion, a fundamental lever to nurture the sense of belonging.

A communication design series For over fifteen years, the series edited by Franco Angeli has reflected on the paths of research in communication design, focusing on themes and perspectives of the evolution of the discipline. Is there a future for research publishing? Giovanni Baule, Letizia Bollini, Clorinda Galasso, Francesco Guida, Salvatore Zingale discuss ways of disseminating research and its developments.

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The international profile of Italian graphics.

Modular Types is a 4-hour workshop dedicated to the experimentation of typographic printing, hosted at the CFP Bauer typography workshop. Through the use of experimental modular matrices, participants explore typography as a design practice, between formal research, process and experimentation. The result of the laboratory is the creation of a poster in A4 format, printed manually with the printing presses available to the laboratory. Maximum number of participants: 8, registration through CFP Bauer. The workshop is free.

The myth factor in brand building – and the destructive power of performance obsession. Today, brand building is expected to be measurable, optimized by algorithms and agents based on artificial intelligence and, consequently, as efficient as possible. Yet, the most valuable asset of a brand cannot be decoded through data: it is the charm it manages to exert on people and the cultural context in which this charm takes shape. Since its foundation in 1972, Peter Schmidt Group has cultivated the aura of brands: a journey that began with Jil Sander, a brand whose strength and brightness remain unchanged today. The same philosophy guides the agency's current work for clients such as Mercedes-Benz, Deutsche Telekom and Weleda: a design capable of creating myth and aura makes brands distinctive, relevant and, ultimately, more valuable than competitors driven exclusively by the pursuit of performance. This event will be held in English.

Starting from some projects of his practice, Patrick Thomas will talk about what happens when designers overcome the conventional role of service providers and begin to conceive their work as a form of political and social commitment. This event will be held in English.

From Luciano di Samosata with Icaromenippo — who was already ironic about the extraterrestrial gaze — to Cyrano de Bergerac with lunar travel, literature has always imagined the problem of communication with radical otherness. In the contemporary, works such as Stories of Your Life (Ted Chiang, from which Arrival) or Project Hail Mary show that the problem is not only linguistic, but cognitive, perceptual and even physical. The same goes for The Three-Body Problem, where communication is strategy, risk, and systemic misunderstanding. On the scientific level, programs such as SETI Institute and METI International, together with academic reflection (Cabrol, Atri, Tarter), highlight a paradox: we look for signals without really knowing what “meaning” means for another intelligence. To this is added a further critical level: the concept of intelligence, on which these attempts are based, reflects situated and often anthropocentric criteria. Its operational definitions privilege capabilities measurable according to human parameters, while studies on distributed intelligence and non-symbolic cognitive forms highlight radically different configurations. Intelligence metrics thus end up building the conditions in which the human excels, making the very concept they intend to measure unstable. Communicating with the alien implies abandoning those egoreferenced heuristics that pervade our way of conceiving language. Current attempts at communication with Heterocephalus glaber (radical eusocial organization), ant colonies (distributed intelligence), or dolphins (complex but not symbolic cognition in the human sense) demonstrate this. The project uses science fiction as a critical device to interrogate contemporary communication: what remains of design when culture, language and shared perception leap? Maximum number of participants: 17, registration through CFP Bauer. The workshop is free.

The NABA Communication and Graphic Design Area promotes the first edition of NABA PAPER JAM, an exhibition dedicated to independent editorial projects created by NABA students and Alumni: magazines, fanzines, posters and illustrated prints, game books, stickers, maps and much more. An opportunity to discover the variety of editorial practices that arise within the Academy and to foster meetings, exchanges and contaminations with the protagonists of visual communication design within the programme of BIG - Biennale Internazionale Grafica. A living ecosystem, an open space for experimentation, in which paper returns to being a ground for research, production and comparison. Not a nostalgic return to analogue, but a demonstration of the vitality of independent publishing and its ability to invent new languages, build communities and transform ideas into objects to read, watch, collect and share. In the afternoon there will also be a pitch session: the selected projects will be presented to a committee of professionals from the world of publishing and visual communication, including Francesca Spiller (founder Reading Room) and Domenico Liberti (partner studio FM Milan) who at the end of the day will decree the winning project.

Villa Necchi Campiglio offers a concrete example of the relationship between graphic design, urban space and the city’s visual narratives. Graphic design does not sit on top of the architecture: it enters into dialogue with the surrounding environment. It orients, informs and connects the heritage with those who move through it. The Villa’s identity is strengthened through signage, exhibitions, campaigns, publications and digital tools. Different interventions, designed to adapt to the functions and rhythms of the place, build a recognisable visual system that extends beyond the gates of via Mozart. The project gathers these experiences to show how graphic design can shape the perception and enjoyment of a place, creating a continuous relationship between space, content and people.

Bello is not enough is a 2-hour taster workshop aimed at young creatives, illustrators and designers at the beginning of their freelance career. It stems from a real need: to bridge the gap between academic training and the reality of creative self-employment. The workshop is designed as an exchange between peers — from a young freelancer to young creatives — and addresses in a practical and direct way the fundamental pillars of self-employment: positioning, portfolio, planning, visibility and customer management. The taster format allows you to touch all the themes in an accessible way, with concrete tools to take home and a Notion portal of resources for those who want to deepen. The number of participants is limited. How to register for the workshop will be communicated soon.

Participants will create visual responses based on the content taken from the daily newspapers. Through processes of sampling, remixing, hacking and de/construction of titles, images and articles, they will transform news into their own interpretations and visual narratives. The works carried out will be collected in editions of black and white booklets, DIN A5 format. Participants are advised to bring: • Laptop, smartphone (with camera) and/or digital camera, USB stick • Image and text editing software • Black drawing or writing tools (pencils, markers, felt or fiber tip pens, ballpoint pens, etc.), pocket cutter, ruler The number of participants is limited. How to register for the workshop will be communicated soon. This event will be held in English.

We will start from the story of examples of visionary experiences of the 1970s, when architects designed impossible, infinite, mobile or playful cities. From these ideas, participants will imagine a utopian city starting from the real city, intervening directly on photographs and transforming them through drawing and collage; finally, they will create a 3D visualization with a pop-up postcard. The goal is to stimulate imaginative and critical thinking and experiment with the project not only as a “right” solution, but as a free creative act. Revolutionary. Activities with a contribution of €12 Bookings via cultura@elpdesign.it

Relay Stories is an intergenerational workshop that uses stock photography as a narrative device to activate creative writing in children and bring adults closer to the practice of storytelling. Set in the historical park of Villa Ghirlanda Silva in Cinisello Balsamo, the project transforms the historical images of the city, of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, into visual triggers to build a collective story: each parent-child group elaborates a part of the story, with characters, context, action, time, until the final return through a performative reading. The format integrates graphic-visual tools with play and teaching, allowing children to discover the history of the place and adults to rediscover their imagination and dig into their memories. The aim is to make languages such as graphics and photography accessible to children and to strengthen the link between community and cultural heritage, transforming the park into a space of relationship, memory and collective imagination. The workshop will be held in two shifts: one at 10:15 and the other at 15:15. It will be possible to participate in only one round. Email registrations to eleonoraprogettarecultura@gmail.com

Universality or individuality? Function or expression? Convention or innovation? Navigating the digital type market means holding opposing forces in balance — an exercise Dalton Maag’s retail catalogue has pursued for thirty-five years. Riccardo takes us behind the scenes to tell the work of a team of designers and developers spread across three continents, retracing challenges and successes through some of the collection’s most significant typefaces, from the viewpoint of those who designed them.

What makes a designer never settle? Not Enough by Design explores the creative tension that drives the project beyond form, towards the search for meaning, intention and significance. Design and typography become tools to shape ideas, communicate with greater awareness and leave positive traces for the future. A path between ambition, responsibility and doubts, in which the impostor syndrome is not necessarily a limit, but can turn into a drive to experiment, continually question oneself and look for new possibilities.

Alfabeti Modernisti is a project by CAST dedicated to the rediscovery and digitization of 25 Italian typefaces designed between 1920 and 1940, originally made of wood and lead and collected by Luca Lattuga. The revival was not limited to the transposition of the originals: each character was interpreted and adapted to the digital medium, intervening on imperfections and inconsistencies and expanding the sets of glyphs to meet contemporary needs. The talk will retrace this process, from the selection and digitisation of the characters to their communication and dissemination.

What does it mean today to deal with the ancient craft of movable type printing? The first obstacle is to build a laboratory. Unless we are children of art, recovering tools, materials and characters related to a technique that has almost disappeared requires skills that go far beyond the graphic arts: becoming designers, typographers, compositors, researchers, merchants of discarded materials, movers and, sometimes, even mechanics. In fifteen years of research and adventures, chasing materials from old printers on sale in every corner of Italy, I have built an important archive. The extraordinary variety of alphabets found — many of them without name, author or documentation — has opened a question: how much do we really know about the Italian typographic culture of the twentieth century? Alfabeti Modernisti Italiani, a research project dedicated to the production of movable type between the thirties and forties is my answer to an intuition born from my field investigation. A research to reconstruct the historical, aesthetic and manufacturing context, registering the production of original Italian alphabets, relating it to the international scene and, at the same time, deepening its territorial specificities. What emerges is a much more complex, rich and varied heritage than hitherto known.

Ragione & Sentimento is a workshop that aims to guide participants on a fascinating journey between the geometric rigor of shapes and the warm naturalness of handwriting, showing how even seemingly simple characters can reveal surprising emotional nuances. The art of letter drawing has always moved halfway between a rational and geometric dimension, and a more expressive one, linked to calligraphic gestures. Examining some classics of sans serif drawing – from Futura by Paul Renner to Gill Sans by Eric Gill - the workshop will allow you to learn to distinguish between geometric sans and humanist sans. A subtle but essential distinction to consciously use typographical fonts, in order to influence not only the aesthetic appearance, but also the emotional perception of a text. Workshop registration will be announced shortly.

The talk presents Beautiful Italian Books as a cultural project under construction, starting from its birth and development within a community of reference that supports its installation and guides its prospects. The intervention crosses the constituent elements of the project – the jury, the exhibition, the catalogue – which will be narrated by placing Beautiful Italian Books in dialogue with the historical and reference partner awards, as devices through which to read different approaches to the selection, evaluation and return of contemporary editorial production and its design and material conditions. The talk focuses on the relationship with the international circuit Best Book Design from All Over the World, which brings together 34 countries already active in the field of national awards dedicated to book design and to which Italy joins. In the Italian context, where the specificities of cultural policies directly affect the quality of editorial production, international comparison becomes a necessary space for reading and verification, in which to cross practices, skills, production systems and different economic models, and read the book as the result of complex material and design conditions.

“Everything important 
I have ever done could fit 
in a small book” (M.D.)   The book is one of those ancient inventions that resists over time without changing shape. A series of sheets, stuck on one side. They can vary in some significant details that affect the ideas they contain; and the ideas they contain influence the choice of those details. A presentation of some examples of extraordinary books that contain art and some examples of my attempts to put art inside a book.

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On the closing day of BIG – Biennale Internazionale Grafica 2026, the organisers, together with AIAP, the Italian association for visual communication design, host a round table on the possible future founding of a museum of graphic design. Milan, internationally recognised as one of the capitals of design, has several institutions that promote design culture, but none specifically dedicated to graphic design. Since 2009 AIAP has run a Graphic Design Documentation Centre (AIAP CDPG), which now holds one of the most significant documentary collections in the field: some 125 fonds in the names of well-known and lesser-known figures of Italian and international graphic design. A unique heritage — a historical archive and a rich specialist library — that allows the Association to curate exhibitions in Italy and abroad, to promote research, to open the holdings to scholars and students, and to keep precious documents and testimonies from being scattered. From the outset AIAP CDPG has seen itself not only as an archive, a place of conservation, but as an agent of dissemination and knowledge. To strengthen the case for a future museum dedicated to graphic design and communication design, the round table brings together testimonies and experiences from organisations of many kinds, from all over Italy. The aim is to foster mutual knowledge, collaboration — and, in time, a foundation.

Monograms are extreme simplifications of alphabetic communication and this book demonstrates how they are more powerful, expressive and meaningful than logos. With hundreds of illustrations, accompanied by the author's comments, anecdotes and stories, Monogrammi is the very first narrated story dedicated to this subject. Part 1 explores the evolution of styles, from the coins of ancient Greece through the centuries to the modernism of the twentieth century – the last movement characterized by a recognizable general style. Part 2 focuses on the multiple approaches to design adopted after World War II, during the rise of consumerism and the consequent need for competitive ideas. Selected monograms of famous and lesser-known designers, and even some students, are analyzed and discussed.

Independentpublishing as an educational project. NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti presents This Charming Mag, a meeting dedicated to the role of independent publishing as a tool for research, experimentation and training within the Academy. Through some examples of magazines created in recent years by students of the Specialist Biennium in Visual Design and Integrated Marketing Communication, the event will retrace the evolution of the editorial project in the magazine format, delving into the creative process that accompanies the creation of an independent publication: from the definition of the concept to the art direction, from the construction of content to graphic design. A contemporary narrative design workshop that experiments within the magazine format, trying to “stress” it and interrogate it as a container and expression of content, languages and forms, with the aim of giving space and life to independent cultural projects, a mirror of the research and design vision of the new generations of designers. Speakers included Roberto Maria Clemente, Art Director and lecturer NABA, and Fabio Pelagalli, Course Leader of the Specialist Bienni in Visual Design and Marketing Communication and in User Experience Design of NABA.

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