This book makes a reference to the statement of the Italian graphic design master Albe Steiner “Il mestiere di Grafico” (The Profession of graphic designer); which was published by Einaudi in 1978 and now recently reprinted. As the book title quotes, “Graphisme is a profession”. Therefore it is a design practises; where the artistic component has his own meaning but isn’t the only essential one and perhaps it is not the most relevant. Graphic design is not a minor art, it is instead a set of practices, which beyond and before teaching visual education, it must transmit knowledge (datas, informations, etc…). The peculiar (and perhaps exceptional) aspect of the specimen lies into the shown projects; which are indeed those that the clients (final users and citizens) have seen or held in their hands. All realized projects.
Marco Tortoioli Ricci, through his BCPT studio and the Comodo collective, since 1993, daily deals with the conditions of a profession shaken by changing forces. His, and his collaborators, approach doesn’t use any shortcuts or self-expressionism shelters. Hence it tackle with rigor and constant commitment the own meaning of design act. Whether as cultural or commercial committee, by giving form and visualization to social needs or territorial identity. And beauty never fails, because graphic job always needs both: biceps (litteral interpretation of the acronym studio name BCPT) the feverish and wise artisan energy, and the doubts about the procedure sense, not by chance Co.Mo.Do. stands for “Communicate Multiply Duties”.
Mario Piazza
Character 'kerəktər noun: noun character; plural noun: characters.
1. the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.
• the distinctive nature of something. synonyms: personality, nature, disposition, temperament, temper, mentality, turn of mind, psychology, psyche, constitution, makeup, make stamp, mold, cast, persona, attributes, features, qualities, properties, traits, essential quality, essence, sum and substance, individuality, identity, distinctiveness, uniqueness, spirit, ethos, complexion, key, tone, tenor, ambience, air, aura, feel, feeling, vibrations, kidney, humor, grain.
• the quality of being individual in an interesting or unusual way.
• strength and originality in a person’s nature.
synonyms: integrity, honor, moral strength, moral fiber, rectitude, uprightness, fortitude, strength, spine, backbone, toughness, resolve, will power, firmness of purpose, grit, guts, gutsiness, gumption, bottle.
• a person’s good reputation. synonyms: reputation, name, good name, standing, stature, position, status, image, credibility, acceptability, prestige, cachet, kudos, eminence, izzat, report,
• a written statement of someone’s good qualities; a recommendation.
2. a person in a novel, play, or movie.
• a part played by an actor. synonyms: persona, person, role, part, dramatis personae
• a person seen in terms of a particular aspect of character.
• an interesting or amusing individual. synonyms: eccentric, oddity, odd fellow, madcap, crank, original, individualist, nonconformist, rare bird, square peg in a round hole, oddball, queer fish, odd fish, one, odd bod, oner, card, caution, case, rara avis.
4. a characteristic, especially one that assists in the identification of a species.
verb
3rd person present: characters.
1. inscribe; engrave.
• describe; characterize.
Personality ' pərs
'nal
noun: personality; plural noun: personalities.
1. the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character.
• qualities that make someone interesting or popular.
synonyms: charisma, magnetism, strength of personality, force of personality, character, powers of attraction, charm, presence, individuality, attractiveness.
2. a famous person, especially in entertainment or sports.
synonyms: celebrity, VIP, star, superstar, celebutante, name, famous name, household name, big name, somebody, leading light, notable, personage, luminary, notability, worthy, celeb, televisionary.
3. the quality or fact of being a person as distinct from a thing or animal.
2. the adjustment of intervals in tuning a piano or other musical instrument so as to fit the scale for use in different keys; in <i>equal temperament</i>, the octave consists of twelve equal semitones.
• (of an object) serving to establish who the holder, owner, or wearer is by bearing their name and often other details such as a signature or photograph.
3. a transformation that leaves an object unchanged.
• an element of a set which, if combined with another element by a specified binary operation, leaves that element unchanged.
4. the equality of two expressions for all values of the quantities expressed by letters, or an equation expressing this, e.g. ( <i>x</i> + 1)<sup>2</sup> = <i>x</i> <sup>2</sup> + 2 <i>x</i> + 1.
SPLEN DIDIS SIMA COLO NIA
Anfore Stencil
Anfore Stencil was designed especially for the Villa of Mosaics in the Umbrian town of Spello and as the key element of its complex visual identity system.
The design of the letters begins with the intention to redesign the classical structure of the Roman capitol with a contemporary feel and moves through a careful synthesis of the images in the villa’s mosaics, inspired by the particular curvature of the amphora depicted in them, with cuts reminiscent of the broken lines of classical mosaics representation and proportions referring to lapidary characters derived from the squared Roman capital.
released in: 2013
designed for: Comune di Spello. Villa dei Mosaici di Spello
Resonating Type
awards: Gold prize at ED AWARDS 2019 in Digital Installation
Innovation prize ADI-INDEX 2019
The design of a typeface destined to become a substantial part, in visual and kinetic terms, of the ‘Resonating Trees’ interactive sound installation developed in collaboration with the sound artist Federico Ortica for Listone Giordano. The project began as the opening episode of a context conceived by our studio for this international wood flooring producer with a view to exploring the complex relationship between Genius and Nature. In this initial project, the immersive installation created in the Umbrian woods of Città della Pieve reconciles soundscape technique with visual mapping. Resonating Type is a geometric ‘stretch’ font designed to visually translate the musical frequencies transmitted to the trees: a typographic score suited to the irregular cylindrical surface of tree trunks, resulting in a surreal suspended performance.
released in: 2018
designed for:
Margaritelli S.p.A. Listone Giordano
Flatland
The book One - Natural Genius retells the first ten years of the product collection dedicated by the company Listone Giordano brand to the relationship between genius and nature. A decade of experimentation by international engineers and designers, such as Michele De Lucchi and Patricia Urquiola, capable of redefining the geometries of wood flooring. Its source of inspiration was the exaggeration of twodimensionality proposed in the well-known novel by the Reverend Abbott in which squares, circles and triangles become essential components in the construction of ‘Flatland’. More than a font, it is a visual score representing the ongoing conflict between decomposition and recomposition in the work of all designers faced with the challenge, presented by Listone Giordano, of relinquishing the third dimension.
POSITIVO NEGATIVO released in:
designed for:
Margaritelli Italia S.p.A.
Listone Giordano
Listone Giordano corporate
The Listone Giordano Corporate font was created more than 20 years ago when the well-known wood flooring company decided to move from the traditional Bodoni used in its communications to a variation with greater visual impact for redesign of its logo. The brand’s rapid growth at international level and the evolution of its product range rendered the possibility of quickly developing the theme of identity essential. It was therefore decided to evolve the logo design into a complete font to be used for the entire system for titling of its product collections. From this perspective, the choice to move from a multitude of trademarks to a single font became strategic, in order both to meet digital and social network communication requirements and, above all, to provide a single tool to enable the company’s in-house personnel to work in complete autonomy.
designed
Margaritelli Italia S.p.A.
Listone Giordano
A highly successful collection of floorings in large natural boards, reflected in a stencil font designed to customize shipment packaging in such a way that the product’s industrial and unfinished character also becomes the visual register that marks the collection’s identity, in terms of both its pack system and its presence in retail areas.
designed for:
Margaritelli Italia S.p.A.
Listone Giordano
Natural Genius Display
It all began with the keyboard of a piano played by the Italian jazz pianist Danilo Rea on a special night at the New York Guggenheim in 2006, sponsored by Umbria Jazz and Listone Giordano.
Two years later, Natural Genius - the event’s title - became a product collection through which the brand belonging to the Margaritelli Group launched its collaboration with international designers. Two-colour simplicity combined with the linear form of a piano keyboard set the tempo for design of the stencil logo that, for over a decade, has marked packaging, showrooms and cross-media tools in the world of interior design.
released in: 2008
designed for:
Margaritelli Italia S.p.A.
Listone Giordano
Listone Giordano Animals
Fontanot Sans
Fontanot Sans Regular
Fontanot Sans
In 2008, Albini & Fontanot, Italian leader in internal and external staircase design, began a process of company rebranding and positioning through the design of a new visual identity system. Modular architectural details and spiralling of the staircases became cornerstones of the brand and its variations.
The result is a modular font, designed in two weights, which, alongside the dynamic rotation system, has redefined the Fontanot brand.
released in: 2008
designed for: Fontanot S.p.A.
Chartula is a typeface designed for the Assisi theological centre, which includes various institutes dedicates to theological formation and research. Trademarks composed by acronyms usually ain’t that reconizable, therefore we choosed a distinctive and elaborate lettering. The inspiration, as the font name declare, came spontaneously from the analysis of historical-religious elements that characterize the city of Assisi.
Chartula is a contemporary sans serif font, which mixes the calligraphic board nib with derivate elements took from oncial and Carolingian script. Chartula is a titling typeface, exclusively in small caps.
PAN ZER OTTO amo RE
Bari Display
A design developed in collaboration with Mauro Bubbico, Michele Bozzi and Marika Mastrandrea. The creation of a city brand is, indirectly, an opportunity for rediscovery of the local languages and codes that define what it means to belong to a community and codification of a possible new use of these as a tool for cohesion and self-determination. The backbone of the design for the visual identity of Bari, the Apulia region’s capital, was therefore the creation of a special alphabet with highly evocative letters that reinterpret the distinctive forms of the uncial script known as ‘Barese’, found in ceremonial Exsultets originating in Bari in 1027. Bari Ornaments is a sign system, supporting the main alphabet, derived from a thoughtful reinterpretation of the city’s epigraphic scene, conceived as a symbolic language used to animate the entire graphic system.
Bari Ornaments
Cooperativo
From the traditional concept of ‘corporate identity’ to a dynamic identity system.
The traditional Banca di Credito Cooperativo - BCC logo is broken down into three core geometric shapes. These three simple forms define a graphic code giving rise to essential iconography and fonts.
released in: 2013
designed for:
BCC Veneto.
Banca di Credito Cooperativo
Roberto Display
Each year, our studio plans an event for reflection on the function and role of design, which we call Polpette. The year in which we had the honour of hosting Roberto Pieracini, we chose to dedicate the event to the design of a titling font inspired by the popular eclecticism of his period of collaboration with Olivetti. The font is therefore a tribute to an historical figure in Italian graphic art who, on several occasions, we have had the pleasure of listening to, spurring us and encouraging us to interpret design in a personal and pure way.
Bcpt Associati/Comodo
Can Design Make a Change?
Polpette 2017
Accademia di Belle Arti di Perugia Biblioteca
Incontro con Roberto Pieracini il libro, l’impegno, la professione, l’insegnamento
venerdì 20 10 2017 ore 16:00
Concrete
The focus of the project for restyling of the Generale Prefabbricati brand was the design of a custom font. Elements derived from the production of prefabricated structures were graphically embodied in impossible geometric shapes, extrusions and parallelepipeds. This impossible typography became the graphic key to the brand’s entire visual identity system, as well as a guideline for definition of its entire coordinated identity system and communication tools.
released in: 2015
designed for: Generale Prefabbricati S.p.A.
Vernacular typography as an identity system. Our intensive workshop days with the young people of the Boys’ Town of Italy childcare institution yielded a typeface, fruit of a journey through the brand’s countless stylistic interpretations that have grown up spontaneously and been reproduced in a wide variety of media over its 65+ years of work, or opera. A rigorous ‘meeting pot’ that has made site-specific design the master key to identity development. Winner in the company logo category of the 2011 ED Awards, this is a concrete example of how participatory processes can surprise even designers themselves.
designed for: Opera Nazionale Città dei Ragazzi
awards: Silver prize at ED AWARDS 2011 in Company Logo category
Ora lab ora assa pora
Norcia is the custom font conceived and designed especially to breathe new life into the entire range of charcuterie products by Renzini.
A black titling typography with rounded endings and stencil cuts, bringing contemporary style to the Renzini family’s century-old tradition. The font’s name is an homage both to the town of Norcia and to the indigenous tradition of norcineria (pork-butchery), artisan know-how handed down through the generations in this Umbrian town.
released in: 2016
designed for: Renzini S.p.A.
Prodotto
Renzini Animals
WEL TAM + FU TURO UMBRIA
Weltam
released in: 2002 designed for: Regione Umbria Docup. 02
awards: Selected project for ADI Design Index 2013
The European campaign for development funds for the Umbria region was an opportunity to look to the future while, at the same time, returning to the origins of Umbrian script. The Palazzo dei Consoli museum in Gubbio houses seven Iguvine tablets, dating back to the 3rd century BC, which remain the most ancient form of writing of the Umbrian language.
A study of the alphabets transcribed in these monumental works led to the design of Weltam, the institutional font of the Umbria Region’s SDP campaign which, for over six years, built the pillars of action required by the European planning documents.
Since its establishment, Emu has specialised in the production of outdoor furniture and quickly became an international player in Italian design.
Redefinition of its publishing tools and communication language resulted in the need for a custom font capable of becoming the brand’s very identity.
The reticular geometric shapes at the basis of the products became the design concept for a ‘variable-frequency’ font defined by the construction materials themselves.
Decapolis alfabeto arabo
Decapolis
Under a major communication project in Jordan, to promote areas of great archaeological value forming part of the Archeogiordania European project developed jointly by the Umbria and Basilicata regions, we endowed this complex project’s visual identity system with an alphabet whose design was inspired by the square, a sacred shape for Islam. This alphabet was designed in both Latin and Arabic versions and used for titling to distinguish the various communication tools.
released in: 2010
designed for: Sviluppumbria
Vivace
For this project, every component was redesigned, from individual furnishings to packaging and products on sale. The Vivace font draws on vernacular, irregular and background relief elements from historic European bistrots and restaurants. This redesign with a contemporary feel was intended to reinterpret the whole set with a strong, unique chromatic impact. Dreamlike and fantastical glyphs, used in various press and packaging campaigns, complete the overall effect.
Vivace Icons
Il Postale Icons
op ti cal mi rage
Bermuda Display
Ulisse Aldrovandi (Bologna, 1522 - 1605), acknowledged by many as the father of modern natural history, published the text Monstrorum Historia in 1642, venting his interest in monsters and mythical creatures.
The accompanying illustrations, now on display at the University of Bologna’s Museo Aldrovandiano, are often the fruit of bizarre combinations between animal species. It was this surreal melange that provided the constructive idea for ‘Bermuda’: another impossible type that blends different axonometric planes to create an upside down effect.
released in: 2012 designed for: Graphic Masters awards: Finalist project at ED AWARDS 2012
It is easy to look at a calendar and imagine going on a trip. Be it a journey to the centre of the Earth, around the world in 80 days or a pure flight of fancy, voyages are something Jules Verne had a knack for transforming into legend or even myth. The covers of his stories, published in the late 1800s, are a skilful combination of cartographic elements and typographic styles. This is the backdrop to Squid, a display font designed to recount, over the 12 months of the Graphicmasters calendar, the imaginative world of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Sofare digital personal trainers. A multidisciplinary concept store offering software, hardware and, most of all, training and design of complex systems for businesses. The font is generated on a matrix of symbols reminiscent of those of mathematics, IT and sinusoidal diagrams. In some cases, these become iconic symbols synthesising professions and training programmes.
ESSO SARÀ MOlto utile VI
The project of the Momi family from Città della Pieve in Umbria relates to historical and cultural redevelopment and promotion of a former mid-twentieth century mill (molino) and seventeenth-century houses in the historic centre. The typography is based on elegant Bodonian proportions while incorporating elements of the 1950s industrial machines inside the mill.
released in: 2016
designed for: Famiglia Momi
IMMAGINE DI UN LAVORO
CHE FOTOGRAFA
UN’EPOCA
IMAGE OF A JOB THAT PICTURES AN ERA
Piano Display
Collection capsules for the Asian market. Piano Display is conceived as an institutional font for design of packaging for Piano and Tandem Margaritelli products, two wood flooring lines specifically for the Asian contract market of large residential towers. The word ‘piano’, spanning many languages, thus becomes a logotype on various levels while the graphic patterns mark the beat of a highly distinctive baseline.
released in: 2006
designed for: Margaritelli Italia S.p.A.
Bernardinus
Through its Rosso Torgiano Riserva wine project, the Terre Margaritelli winery pays homage to one of the great Umbrian painters, Bernardino di Betto, better known as Pinturicchio (‘little painter’).
Indeed, the monumental spaces of the perspectives that distinguish his work inspired five core geometric shapes from which an entire alphabet is built. Just as in Bruno Munari’s ABC with Imagination, the modules may be arranged and rearranged in a tangram that expands according to requirements.
released in: 2013
designed for:
Margaritelli Italia S.p.A.
Copyright
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, adapted, translated, or stored by any electronic retrieval system without express prior written permission. Said rights apply to all countries. The Authors and Publisher decline any and all liability for eventual errors and/or inaccuracies in the texts published or for any modification and/or variation of charts, diagrams and models attached to said texts. While the Authors guarantee the accuracy of their work, they hereby decline any liability for damages arising from the use of the data and information contained therein. The Publisher shall be released from any liability for damages arising from involuntary typing or printing errors.
Printed in January 2020
Art director: Marco Tortoioli Ricci
Layout: Achraf Hakim Ham Lorenzo Poderini Gianluca Sandrone Marta Adamkowska
Photography: Archivio bcpt / Co.Mo.Do.
Type design: Marco Tortoioli Ricci
Francesco Gubbiotti
Achraf Hakim Ham
Gianluca Sandrone
Andrea Filippucci
Tommaso Pucci
Print: Graphicmasters S.r.l.
Paper: Fedrigoni Sirio Color caffè 290 gr Fabriano Bioprima Book 85 gr
