Hasta La Ideas

May 29

Made in Italy: the best in post-war Italian graphic design comes to London

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Book covers for Rizzoli by Mario Dagrada, 1964-71

Paper company Fedrigoni has collaborated with UK design studio SEA and the Aiap archive in Milan to produce a London exhibition and series of books on post-war Italian graphic design…

Made in Italy consists of an exhibition, a case-bound limited edition book and also four individual books – each dedicated to the work of a particular Italian graphic designers, the first two being Franco Grignani (1908-1999) and Giancarlo Iliprandi (1925-).

Other Italian designers whose work will feature in the show next month at the Protein gallery, Studio 2, in London’s Shoreditch – and in the single edition book – include Mario Dagrada, Mimmo Catellano and Heinz Waibl.

Photographs from inside the Aiap archives in Milan

The project has been made possible thanks to the extensive body of work housed at Aiap, the Associazione Italiana Design Della Comunicazione Visiva. A few images from SEA’s tour of the organisation’s Graphic Design Documentation Centre, which is dedicated to collecting and preserving the country’s graphic design history, are shown in the post.

The aim of Made in Italy is to bring the work of some of Italy’s most celebrated graphic design practitioners to more prominence in the UK. While the more familiar names of Griganani and Iliprandi are now rightly held up as leaders in their field, many other lesser known figures have perhaps not had the international exposure they deserve.

SEA say that they have also produced a set of posters for the project, including a reproduction of Iliprandi’s skull and crossbones design he produced for Arflex in 1970 (see book spread below).

Made in Italy will be launched at Studio 2, 31 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EY on June 11. General admission is Friday 12 and Saturday 13, 10am-5pm (free). See mii.london for more details.