È tempo di Creative Hero

La competizione per le scuole grafiche di tutta Italia compie 6 anni. Si parte l’8 ottobre con i brief delle aziende protagoniste

Lavoro di squadra, creatività, competizione, tecnologia, passione, amore per la grafica e la comunicazione. Sono questi gli ingredienti di Creative Hero, la competizione aperta agli studenti delle scuole grafiche di tutta Italia che vogliono confrontarsi sulla realizzazione di un progetto creativo per “vestire” i prodotti di brand che sottopongono ai partecipanti i loro obiettivi attraverso un brief. Organizzata grazie alla collaborazione fra l’Istituto Salesiano San Marco di Mestre, Confartigianato Impresa Vicenza Sistema Comunicazione e TicTac Stampa di Thiene, con Epson Italia e Cartes come sponsor tecnici, quest’anno Creative Hero giunge alla sua sesta edizione, rinnova la sua formula e punta a un coinvolgimento ancora più esteso – nel 2020 sono stati 400, obiettivo per il 2021 è arrivare a 500 – di studenti provenienti da tutta Italia.

Un ruolo fondamentale nella competizione è, fin dalla nascita di Creative Hero, quello dei briefer. I brand che decidono di mettersi in gioco per accompagnare i giovani talenti in un’esperienza estremamente vicina alla realtà professionale che si troveranno ad affrontare una volta terminato il loro percorso di studi. Non progetti astratti, dunque, ma basati su precisi obiettivi comunicativi legati a prodotti realmente in commercio e al loro posizionamento. Ecco dunque il ruolo centrale che assume il brief, cui il progetto deve saper aderire se non, talvolta, superare le aspettative. Sono tredici le aziende che negli anni scorsi hanno deciso di partecipare; tra queste figurano tre realtà venete del mondo food&beverage: Rigoni di Asiago, F.lli Zuccato e Tzimbar, che produce la birra Cimbra. Tutte e tre sono state protagoniste dell’edizione 2019, in virtù di una spiccata attenzione nei confronti della comunicazione stampata, dalla scelta dei materiali allo studio del design, dal dialogo coi fornitori alla partecipazione attiva a tutte le fasi di produzione. «Abbiamo deciso di partecipare a Creative Hero perché da sempre la nostra azienda collabora con giovani ragazzi in progetti ed eventi» spiega Lisa Berti, Responsabile grafica, comunicazione e marketing di Tzimbar. «Ci è sembrata un’occasione importante nonostante la giovane età dei ragazzi non rientrasse ancora nel nostro target,

Progetti sperimentali per aziende reali: la parola ai briefer

in quanto prodotto alcolico; è stato interessante vedere il nostro prodotto con occhi più giovani e una mente più libera dagli “schemi” lavorativi che spesso ci poniamo». Anche Manuel Rodeghiero, Senior graphic designer di Rigoni di Asiago, sottolinea il valore reciproco che deriva dal progetto: «Collaborare con giovani talenti è importante per sapersi rinnovare e per dare spazio allo spirito creativo e innovativo delle nuove generazioni, che saranno il futuro di aziende come la nostra. Per i ragazzi è importante sapersi confrontare con realtà del territorio per respirare un po’ di vita aziendale» e, in merito all’esperienza in sé, aggiunge: «Le aspettative sono state assolutamente attese, ho trovato dei ragazzi motivati, interessati e molto preparati. È stato davvero piacevole poter condividere con loro il mio percorso sia come “esperto” che come rappresentante di un’azienda, poter dare loro consigli e motivarli a fare sempre meglio».

«Mettersi in gioco fa parte del… gioco» dice Marco Zuccato, responsabile commerciale e marketing di F.lli Zuccato, che prosegue: «le idee fresche sono sempre molto importanti per interpretare le aspettative di futuri consumatori, e i risultati ottenuti sono ottimi. Se, come azienda, decidessimo di partecipare ancora in futuro, lascerei carta bianca partendo da uno storytelling in modo da far divertire e dare totale libertà di espressione a tutti i partecipanti». Le aziende sono sia briefer sia parte della giuria, che individua i vincitori secondo precisi parametri. «Espressione del valore qualitativo dei prodotti» è il criterio che ha orientato le scelte di Marco Zuccato in giuria. Per Manuel Rodeghiero i criteri di valutazione sono stati «aderenza rispetto al brief, intuizione creativa, tecnica grafica, esposizione fluida e coinvolgente». Per Lisa Berti è stata cruciale «l’attenzione ai particolari: abbiamo trovato interesse, ricerca e attenzione in alcune caratteristiche che potrebbero passare in secondo piano per un prodotto come il nostro. Un esempio: il gruppo di ragazzi che poi ha vinto l’edizione 2019, ha differenziato la nostra linea di birre semplicemente con la barba di un uomo Cimbro. In base al contenuto alcolico e al grado zuccherino la barba era più o meno folta. È stato divertente!»

Le tappe di Creative Hero 2021

La call è attualmente aperta sia alle scuole che desiderano partecipare, sia alle aziende che vogliono proporsi come briefer: saranno tre e daranno i nomi alle rispettive challenge. L’evento si svolgerà in più tappe nell’autunno 2021: si partirà l’8 ottobre con il brief iniziale, cui seguiranno 15 giorni di laboratorio con gli studenti, che consegneranno i loro progetti, a livello locale, il 24 ottobre. I primi di novembre verranno selezionate le nove squadre finaliste (tre per ciascuna challenge) che parteciperanno poi a un bootcamp di due giorni (il 6 e il 7 novembre) in cui, grazie a un’attività di formazione e supporto da parte di esperti, dovranno perfezionare il progetto esecutivo dal punto di vista tecnico, in modo che vengano rispettati tutti i criteri di fattibilità in fase di produzione. Sempre il 7 i progetti verranno presentati ai briefer e l’8 novembre si terrà la premiazione: verranno proclamati i tre vincitori di ciascuna challenge e il vincitore assoluto. Ma a prescindere da chi salirà sul podio, anche quest’anno Creative Hero si confermerà, per usare ancora le parole di Lisa Berti, «un’occasione di crescita e responsabilità. Anche la sana competizione che si crea tra i partecipanti è importante, spinge i ragazzi a dare il meglio e si nota». Tutte le informazioni su www.creativehero.it

PAGE 8

HOW PRINT LOVERS IS MADE

COVER SIRIO STUCCO CALCE 320 G/M² PAPER Refined, sustainable, perfect for giving shape and substance to the most sophisticated projects. This is the paper chosen for the cover of this issue of PRINTlovers, Sirio Stucco Calce in 320 g/m². Sirio Stucco Calce is a great classic - always up-to-date - in the Fedrigoni catalogue: a range of natural papers and boards, with a smooth surface, made of pure ECF cellulose - Elemental chlorine-free - and FSC® certified, completely biodegradable and recyclable. The special “Stucco” treatment, present on both sides, allows for a particularly sharp and brilliant print. Elegant and sophisticated, characterised by a warm colour and unmistakable tactility, highly prized and with an excellent print yield, Sirio Stucco Calce is suitable for the production of any type of editorial, stationery and commercial print. It is particularly valued for prestigious editorial productions, brochures and commercial prints where the characteristics of a high-performing substrate with refined, tactile sensations are used, with the advantages and printing yield of coated substrates; in this case, it is perfectly suitable both for 4-colour printing with photographic yield and for the finishing treatment with hot printing of the PRINTlovers logo. Sirio Stucco Calce is ideal for the leading printing and finishing techniques: offset, blind embossing, hot foil stamping, thermography, screen printing and letterpress, and is available in 130, 190, 250 and 320 g/m².

CMYK PRINTING The Lovers lettering is hot foil stamped with LUXOR® 232, a timeless gold that also echoes some of the details on the back cover.

INSIDE COVER Grafical produced both the label and the inside cover on which it is applied. The star of this CMYK printed and enhanced back cover’s design is undoubtedly the LUMAFIN® effect, here in two versions. The camera results from hot stamping with LUMAFIN® Brown, a glossy effect with a vintage feel, while the plants on the bottom have been hot stamped with LUMAFIN® Clear. Here, the main feature of LUMAFIN® is evident, namely its translucent character, which creates brilliance and allows the underlying design to be seen. The italicised lettering reflects the cover’s LUXOR® 232 gold. On the other hand, the seal print is an embossed bas-relief achieved with the hinderer + mühlich clichés, a precise and defined print that creates a tactile effect on the paper.

SAVILE ROW PLAIN CAMEL 200 G/M² PAPER Savile Row is a range of natural papers and boards with a woven effect, a tribute to the famous London street where the world’s best tailors began. They comprise 60% pure cellulose E.C.F. (Elemental Chlorine Free), 20% cotton fibres, and 20% textile fibres and are FSC® certified. Savile Row is in three versions produced through technologically advanced solutions, including the Plain version used for the back cover of this issue, characterised by a slightly rough surface and available in six colours, including the sophisticated Camel. Combining elegance with technical-functional characteristics, they are suitable for the production of high-quality editorial, commercial and stationery prints using the main printing systems (offset, dry embossing, hot foil stamping, letterpress, thermography and screen printing). Savile Row also gives excellent results in the main packaging processes (cutting, die-cutting, creasing, folding and glueing), thanks to recent innovations that have made the product more elastic, allowing easier and more precise folding. Savile Row is particularly appreciated in the fashion industry.

LABEL

Grafical produced the label with a 4-colour print on both substrates and a thick varnish. The two papers were laminated and finally hot foil stamped in seal form.

PICASSO X-DRY FSC™ BARRIER AP1300 WG74 Picasso X-Dry is a natural paper made from FSC™-certified pure virgin pulp. The natural white shade and felt-marked texture enhance any label, making it elegant and refined. Picasso is offered with waterproof X-Dry™ technology, specially developed by Fedrigoni’s master papermakers to preserve the initial opacity of the label even when immersed in an ice bucket. Barrier technology prevents label deformation and the formation of wrinkles and bubbles in the event of temperature changes. Combined with the permanent UV acrylic adhesive AP1300, Picasso X-Dry FSC™ Barrier is the ideal solution for all premium products requiring a high-performance label.

WHITE COTTON ULTRA WS™ SH-9020 CB80 The fine felt-marked texture and delicate natural white shade of White Cotton make it one of the favourite self-adhesive papers of label designers worldwide. Its high thickness makes it perfect for printing embossing and debossing finishes. It is also environmentally friendly because it contains no tree fibres and is produced in the historic Fedrigoni plant in Fabriano from pure cotton fibre, a plant that is renewed annually. A special mildew inhibitor makes it particularly suitable for labelling quality wines and spirits destined for cellar ageing. ULTRA WS™ technology prevents the formation of wrinkles and bubbles and the deformation of the label in case of temperature changes and contact with water or ice. It also improves the adhesion of the label to the glass without causing edge-lifting problems.

PRINTING AND FINISHING

GRAFICAL Grafical was founded in 1982 in the heart of Valpolicella, where it has been operating in the graphics sector for over 30 years, combining tradition and innovation to create a product of excellent quality. Today it employs 90 people, 35 of whom work in the pre-press and administrative departments and 55 in the printing room. The company has specialised in printing self-adhesive labels for the wine sector using offset, screen and digital roll-to-roll technology. The machinery used is all of the latest generation and enables the company to work with the most exclusive techniques and selected materials. Grafical’s success is due primarily to the strengths it has always relied on: excellent product quality and short-order creation and processing times. The company is also FSC™ and BRCGS certified.

PAPER

FEDRIGONI Since 1888 Fedrigoni has stood for excellence in the production of special papers. The Group is one of Europe’s leading players in producing and selling various types of high value-added paper for packaging and graphics and self-adhesive products for labelling. With around 4,000 employees in Italy and abroad and 25,000 catalogue references, the Group sells and distributes in 130 countries worldwide. Fedrigoni’s paper division includes Cordenons and the historic Fabriano brand, with over 750 years of history, and, in the Self-Adhesives division, Arconvert and Ritrama, which has led the Group to become the third global player in pressure-sensitive labels.

CLICHÉS AND COLOURS

LUXORO Luxoro is the exclusive partner in Italy of the KURZ Group, a world player and international reference point in producing equipment and technology for hot and cold printing. Luxoro wants to spread a new way of thinking about packaging and brand image through its inspirations, new finishing solutions, and high-quality materials studied for unique designs. Whether it’s packaging, labels, publishing, security, cosmetics, automotive, white goods or fashion, Luxoro’s enhancements are always cutting edge and surprising. Luxoro’s decoration technologies and materials are among the best in the world, and expertise in advice and service is a cornerstone of the company’s philosophy. Luxoro is a supplier of decoration materials but it also develops with designers and creative people the best applications to bring their ideas to life. Thanks to strict corporate policies aimed at environmental sustainability, Luxoro has long been a 100% renewable energy and totally zero impact company. www.luxoro.it

ENGLISH VERSION

PAGE 22

LABELS, WINE INTERPRETERS

Tasting to visualise a colour. Observing a landscape to define a shape. Telling a story through a paper, restoring a scent by focusing on touch. Among the many possible philosophies behind creating a label, in Italy, there is an increasingly popular approach that interprets and expresses - through printing and substrates too - the whole world that the product encloses. We asked three designers - Andrea Castelletti, Cristina Ciamporcero and Valentina Cresti - what direction communication in the wine world is taking. It is a world profoundly linked to tradition, and yet it is also a major player in an innovation dictated, among other things, by the urgent need for greater sustainability.

BY MICHELA PIBIRI

ANDREA CASTELLETTI Creative Director, Art Director, Designer, Lecturer In 2008 he started working in a communication agency operating between Milan and New York. In the same period, he created some posters with social themes. His creations have been exhibited in more than 40 cities and galleries worldwide, including the Palais des Arts Décoratifs of the Louvre Museum in Paris and the Triennale di Milano Design Museum. They have won over 60 national and international awards, including three Platinum, nine Gold and two Silver from Graphis New York. In 2010 he began his career as an independent creative working with various agencies and companies on communication, branding and packaging projects. He has worked for clients such as Barilla, Lavazza, Pepsi, Technogym and McDonald’s. Since 2014 he has specialised in packaging and communication projects for the wine sector, adopting an approach that can be defined as a “fluid agency”, assembling different teams from time to time, made up of the most suitable professionals for each individual project. He lives and works between Milan and Marche, his home region. www.acastelletti.com

CRISTINA CIAMPORCERO Winestylist Cristina began life as a Winestylist in 2013 in Ivrea after a decade of experience as a wine designer and co-founder of ArteVino in 2001. The passion for packaging design has always characterised Cristina Ciamporcero’s career, starting from her first years of experience for Olivetti. Designing a wine label is not only a work of creativity but, above all, a work involving research, taste, history, art and culture linked to the terroir in which the wine is produced. Labels must express their roots and the personality of the wine so that they always stand out from the other bottles. This sentence has encapsulated Cristina Ciamporcero’s philosophy as a wine designer for over twenty years. www.winestylist.it

VALENTINA CRESTI Founder of Valentina Cresti & Associati In only a short space of time, the graphic design studio Valentina Cresti & Associati, founded by Valentina Cresti in 2016 in Siena, has reached levels of expertise and prestige in the wine sector and beyond. Thanks to remarkable creativity and continuous research, it has acquired a knowhow that has allowed it to position itself at the forefront of Italian label design in just a few years. Acknowledged as “innovators”, as also witnessed by the various awards it has won since its foundation, Valentina Cresti & Associati has reinterpreted the evolution of the contemporary world of wine, creating a personal, strategic and winning graphic image for each product. A young but highly specialised team can offer companies its professional expertise in various design fields, from label design (for wine and more besides) to packaging, branding and consulting services. The know-how acquired in tackling complex communication projects always goes hand in hand with an understanding of the individual situation of the client, who interfaces with the team from the discussion of the initial brief to the conclusion of the work. www.valentinacrestieassociati.com

What, in your experience, are the most pressing demands in the sector at the moment?

Andrea Castelletti Competition is getting increasingly fierce; there are many companies and products on the market and just as many studios to which you can turn. In my opinion (as always), the most urgent requirement is and must be the definition of a solid strategic path for the brand and the products it wants to offer.

Cristina Ciamporcero Today, customers and consumers are precisely aligned on environmental issues. We all know by now that we have to think and consume “green”, and the new generations are fortunately already born with these principles. In the world of packaging, environmental sustainability is extremely important: an entirely eco-sustainable project is unique, smart and has a different sensory approach with the consumer. Eco-sustainable papers, for example, make it possible to discover a new materiality, a naturalness emphasised by the imperfection of the materials used to produce them. Valentina Cresti Companies - now more than ever - feel a strong need to communicate: their vision, their history, the philosophy behind their products, the company values... Therefore, when we are commissioned to do a job, we are not simply asked to “dress a bottle well” but to convey what lies behind that bottle. A great deal of attention is paid, for example, to giving a message of naturalness (as with organic products) but also to ‘handmade’, the craftsmanship and care taken in producing a particular wine. This means that the label is not just a piece of paper, albeit a beautiful one, which simply contains the information required by law, but a real story, made up of tactile and visual sensations, of what the producer wants to communicate.

Is it possible to identify new trends in terms of design, processing and formats?

Andrea Castelletti I don’t particularly like trends because they risk being ephemeral and very limiting. Design must aspire to eternity. The designer’s task is to study, seek beauty, dare, and define a standard that tends towards immortality from time to time.

Cristina Ciamporcero I have noticed that in recent years minimalism, which I particularly love, has been somewhat abandoned and replaced by a new “art-deco” where elaborate ink drawings with strokes reminiscent of burin techniques are making a modern comeback: nature is the central character. I have also noticed this new trend in illustrators for the publishing industry. Dry embossing, typography and the use of foils in more unusual colours are also making a comeback, and it’s no coincidence that Luxoro has come up with a new palette called ‘EXTRA!ordinary’. The format of the labels certainly covers everything – it’s like swaddling for a baby; personally, I can’t imagine having to design a small label anymore.

Valentina Cresti For the average consumer, deciding which bottle of wine to buy can be challenging, but it can be just as tough for a producer to choose the right look for their bottle of wine. In fact, while the decision to use one or more particular processes or dies is often a matter of budget, choosing the right look for your products is a matter of taste, but also of foresight and clear marketing choices. There are a lot of current trends: there’s always someone who doesn’t want to lose the historical allure of their products and “limit” themselves to a restyling in a classic key of the labels; then there are those who identify with a more modern style; but more and more manufacturers are choosing to renew their catalogue with a sometimes minimalist look, sometimes very graphic and/or typographic, and sometimes decidedly artistic. On the other hand, in a world full of high-level competitors, being able to stand out from the others is fundamental, if notindispensable.

What is your approach to the project?

Andrea Castelletti My approach is totally immersive. For the type of project I carry out, it is essential to have an in-depth knowledge of the brand, the company, the people, the products, and the cultural, historical, landscape and natural context. Therefore, the preliminary study phases - which can take a long time - are fundamental to the project’s success.

Cristina Ciamporcero Tasting the wine whose identity is to be designed or redesigned will undoubtedly give you an in-depth understanding of its soul: an antiquated image that does not do justice to the product is unfortunately still the prerogative of many important wines today. It is equally important to visit the winery; walking through the vineyards, meeting the winemaker and being told a few anecdotes certainly helps to empathise with the project, understand its fundamental concepts and intuit which creative idea to follow. Finally, philological research linked to the territory allows you to know the place’s historical and artistic context. I always try to make my labels unique and unrepeatable by inserting illustrations that I create by hand and have different styles depending on the client and what I want to tell the final consumer.

Valentina Cresti First of all, for the project to be 100% successful, it is necessary to know not only the product but also the producer. By that, I don’t mean simply “who they are” and “where they come from”, but the whole range of details that describe them and their way of living and working. Every detail, however insignificant it may seem, can trigger the spark of inspiration: this is why I believe it is essential for there to be a very open relationship and a continuous dialogue with the company so we have a solid foundation that allows us to ‘tailor’ the right dress for the product. Secondly, tasting the wine can influence the choice of colour or the finish of the label: the aromas and flavours are translated into colours and shapes, so the external appearance of the bottle hints at, suggests, or, more accurately, ‘opens the eyes’ to the tasting.

Can you tell us about a project carried out for a client, which fully embodies your design philosophy?

Andrea Castelletti One of our most recent projects is Cossignani L.E. Tempo, an organic sparkling wine company from the Marche region. We handled their strategic positioning, naming, identity and, of course, packaging. Knowing every stage of the Metodo Classico production process and the history of Letizia and Edoardo Cossignani, the brother and sister behind this winery, their grandfather Saturnino and the whole family was fundamental to the success of such a complex and challenging project. The name - L.E. Tempo - is made up of two souls. The first, the one linked to tradition, is made up of the siblings’ initials creating the French determinative article: a tribute to the wine-making tradition of Champagne. The second - the more conceptual one - features the word time (Tempo): the fundamental element of the production chain (the Metodo Classico is a very long, artisan process) that also takes on a symbolic and mythical value. For the Cossignani family, time is an opportunity. It is time, in fact, that allows them to make unique products, study and preserve the land they cultivate, and remember and celebrate the family heritage. Therefore, in the naming, we find the three cornerstones of this company: the siblings, the Metodo Classico, and the most precious resource of all. The visual imagery is inspired by mythology. In ancient times, the snake symbolised Chronos (whose Latin equivalent is Saturninus; so Saturninus, Letizia and Edoardo’s grandfather, provided the solution), the deity representing the passage of time. Legend has it that the serpent gave life to the cosmic egg, the casket of the Universe, from which everything originated. We find these elements in the logo and label, giving shape to a memorable identity. The result is a bottle that is solemn, precious and at the same time innovative, representing the most magical aspect of Cossignani production and history.

Cristina Ciamporcero The most relevant experience concerned the graphic restyling and repositioning of the image of the complete range of wines of the co-operative winery of Alice Bel Colle in Alto Monferrato. I was asked to design lines of labels that would invite the consumer to visit the winery. I got so involved in the surrounding environment that from the panoramic viewpoint on the hilltop of the small village with a 360° view of the gentle hills covered with vines, the Ligurian Apennines and down to the sea, I thought I would draw precisely what I saw: cheerful, colourful houses with those wonderful hills as far as the eye could see in the background. And that’s how anyone who looks at the label and goes to the panoramic viewpoint will find what I drew: from the town hall to the small brick-red and ochre-yellow church with the blue house of the parish priest, the hotel-restaurant Belvedere rosa etc... yes, because in a small village of 700 souls everyone knows each other and works in the co-operative as winemakers. For the three top wines, I went into detail: for Alix, a Barbera d’Asti Superiore, I depicted an old vine shoot to symbolise the old vines used for that wine; for Monteridolfo, which means “glorious wolf”, I drew the valley at night with a wolf howling in the background, in transparent silkscreen on a midnight blue background. For Paiè, a Moscato d’Asti, I drew the whole bouquet of white flowers that can be found in the wine’s aromas, from lily of the valley to lychee. The flowers have a pearlescent and three-dimensional effect on white cotton paper.

Valentina Cresti Limiting yourself to just one project is like choosing your favourite child... it’s something you can’t do! Joking aside, being able to have carte blanche in designing is undoubtedly a considerable advantage: to be able to range freely between substrates and finishes, to be able to give free rein to creativity without limits, needless to say, is an enormous satisfaction, but it is even more so when the fruit of your work fully meets the taste of the customer first, and then of their customers. Some examples of this are the Giallo Paglia del Drago e la Fornace, winner of the label of the year at Vinitaly in 2017 - after years it hasn’t lost its strong impact on consumers - but also the Ape del Poggio di Gavi, a newcomer but very successful, or the range of sparkling wines for Anna Spinato, which will be presented to the general public soon.

How do you choose the materials for your projects?

Andrea Castelletti The choice of materials is always in line with the idea, the positioning and the strategic path that has been defined beforehand. Enhancements are never an end in themselves. My approach is based on searching for an idea and a story that are first and foremost relevant to the consumer.

Cristina Ciamporcero I like to select from the various suppliers the ones who pay more attention to design and sustainability. For the bottles, I really like clean lines and the search for ‘wild glass’. I prefer natural papers for the labels, marked with felt and made using fibres from alternative materials or materials that are renewed annually, such as cotton and hemp. I like the Fedrigoni Self-Adhesives range because the same range is also available for stationery in creating coordinated packaging and creating a corporate image. Valentina Cresti Everything contributes to creating the result, even choices that may seem secondary: while I design a new product, I already imagine during the drawing phase the finishes it will have to have, the effect of light, the shape of the bottle with all its details, the resulting overall image. From the capsule to the collar, from the label to the back, from the wine to the glass, everything must dance together to the same rhythm. And then it’s vital to know the materials and techniques well: from its production to the consumer’s table, a bottle of wine, and therefore its label, passes through many hands and situations. Labels are wetted, cooled, heated and handled a lot of the time. Consequently, you need to have a perfect understanding of the material and the printing method so that the product doesn’t have any unpleasant surprises during its life cycle.

How do you choose the printing companies you trust?

Andrea Castelletti The ideal partner is one who is willing to invest (with the designer and the company) in the project, sharing information, know-how and proposing solutions.

Cristina Ciamporcero I like to create a relationship of respect and trust with printers; this isn’t always possible because many times it’s the customer who chooses the printer directly based on their own logistical or economic needs, but when you can dialogue, the printing result certainly benefits. Thinking about print enhancements and discussing the actual feasibility and quality of the result with the printer is essential and can make the difference between a project printed to the letter and a project printed according to printing initiatives or economic requirements.

Valentina Cresti I find that the final part of the project, i.e. actual production, is a crucial and particularly delicate part of the process. Making a mistake with a supplier means compromising the work’s success, so, if possible, I always try to have a continuous comparison with the suppliers we choose together with the company. Like everyone else, I have my benchmark suppliers I’ve been working with for years and who I trust, but it also happens that the company itself sends me to one of its own providers, so it’s not a burden on me. However, it goes without saying that by working with several people, you can get to know each other and exchange information openly and understand what the crucial points on which to intervene are and what choices to make at the printing stage. That’s what you call good teamwork.

Looking to the future: what challenges await the sector?

Andrea Castelletti To create products that stand out, I believe it’s essential to increasingly spread a design culture based above all on giving the right value to time. We’re living in a historical era in which we’re asked to offer exceptional solutions at the pace of fast food. Slowing down can only bring value and quality that last.

Cristina Ciamporcero I think that wine packaging should become completely eco-sustainable: the bottle should be made of recycled glass, the label of recycled paper or paper from alternative sources (cotton, hemp, etc.), the printing inks should be made with the least possible chemicals in the factories and completely biodegradable in the environment, the capsule should be made of recycled material... The label should tell the consumer its story, show how and where the wine is produced with the help of augmented reality. It will be a tough challenge because there will have to be a lot of synergy between all the suppliers, but it is the only way to protect the environment.

Valentina Cresti More and more attention is being paid to “green” options, i.e. sustainable solutions, recycled and recyclable media, and players in the printing sector are increasingly moving in this direction, proposing technological innovations that are environmentally sustainable. This theme is undoubtedly very successful, but beyond the concept, the fact that even the aesthetics of the product can tell the story of its green soul through the right choices (a 100% recycled glass with an irregular finish, a paper with a visible vegetable fibre component, etc.) is an added value that is commercially rewarding.

GREAT YEAR FOR ONLINE WINE

After a 2020 marked by exceptional circumstances that made online commerce explode, wine delivery platforms are working to consolidate their presence in the consumption habits of Italians, focusing on personalisation and packaging that combines safety, convenience and sustainability. We asked three B2C wine delivery companies, Tannico, Glugulp! and Winelivery, how they are experiencing this moment.

BY ROBERTA RAGONA

Wine is a product that has always been used to travelling. From the wooden crates branded with the coat of arms of the wineries to the straw that in the past protected the bottles from the worst impacts, the importance of brand identity and the practical needs of logistics have always been part of the history and imagination of wine. The wine world was among the first to identify the possibilities of online trade for the export of Italian wine products. In recent years, however, there has been a profound change in the service on offer, no longer designed solely for large volumes and aimed at large buyers in the wholesale market but rather to meet the everyday needs of end consumers. A change of mentality that combines the streamlined nature of start-ups aimed at a younger public open to experimentation with the expertise and attention to the quality of the wine world. We are talking about platforms that were created in the last decade, but in the past year have experienced the transition from a user base of early adopters to an audience that has discovered the convenience of buying online compared to traditional retail channels. According to leading international analysts, in 2020, Italy has unequivocally made up the gap that separated it in the purchase of wine online from countries such as the United States or England, where e-commerce accounts for around 10% of total purchases. Marco Magnocavallo, founder and CEO of Tannico, confirms, “2020 was a year not only of a boom in online wine purchases but also of changes in consumer behaviour. At the start of the first lockdown, we recorded a 100% increase in volumes, 10% increase in purchase frequency and 5% increase in bottle quantities per order placed.” Andrea Antinori, co-founder of Winelivery - a platform specialising in wine, spirits and ready-to-drink cocktail kits - also confirms an average growth in orders on the platform of 350%, with a peak of 600% in 2020 compared to the previous year. These are unprecedented numbers achieved thanks in part to the delivery methods of the service, which offers single bottles and cocktail kits to the home, allowing more frequent orders linked to the moment of immediate consumption. It is precisely this expandability of individual orders that has allowed Winelivery to detect a change in the consumption habits of alcoholic beverages, with an increase in orders at all times of day, not just aperitif time, with a particularly marked increase at lunchtime and on Sundays. A change also confirmed by Roberta Longhi, Marketing manager at Glugulp! - a platform specialising in the online sale of champagne - which has seen a growth both in volumes and in the habit of consuming champagne, no longer considered just an exception for special occasions but a permanent fixture for high-level food and wine experiences at home.

From the virtual shelf to personalised unboxing

With the change in habits and a customer journey in which the purchase is no longer guided by the experience on the shelf, packaging communication methods are also changing. Andrea Antinori of Winelivery explains how important it is to know where consumers are in their purchasing journey. “Communicating the platform through various channels - including, of course, our packaging - is essential to bring in those who don’t yet know us or haven’t tried our service themselves: it’s a vital moment of awareness. Then, once the consumer is inside, communication must shift its focus from Winelivery itself to the products we offer and the wide range of choices, because it is on these two aspects that consumer loyalty is built.” Tannico’s Magnocavallo confirms how a non-obvious communication of the platform is fundamental in contributing to the enjoyment of the whole experience. “Tannico’s cartons move away from the clichés we are used to associating with the world of wine&spirits. Tannico’s packaging has a design that is closer to the world of fashion, starting with the choice of blue as the dominant colour instead of the now overused red in its various shades, traditionally associated with wine. At the time of unboxing, the customer is greeted by booklets produced in collaboration with various international illustrators. Value is given to the work of those who are in the vineyard and produce the wine, with a language that is at the side of the people and never in the chair, expert but never know-it-all. Particularly popular with consumers are the various possibilities of packaging or internal elements such as postcards and other printed products. As well as the option of including a personalised message for the recipient in the delivery, Winelivery offers its B2B customers even more sophisticated customisation possibilities, from the livery of the packaging, through the personalisation of the bags to the bottle itself.

Logistics, sustainable lightness

From a packaging and handling point of view, wine has always been a product with specific needs regarding ease of transport, safety and logistics. The challenge facing delivery services is to replace traditional materials, such as wood, with lighter but equally sustainable and durable ones such as corrugated cardboard. This brings about a significant reduction in transported weight with the same safety and the possibility of satisfying a more substantial number of orders per shipment and lower CO2 emissions related to transport and logistics. And this is where design and converting come to the rescue, having developed innovative solutions to meet these requirements. Tannico’s Marco Magnocavallo continues, “We are lucky because in our sector the best packaging from an operational point of view (product safety and protection, ease of storage and assembly, speed of supply and cost) is also the most sustainable, i.e. a 100% cardboard package, which is easily compactable and recyclable. Our packaging is FSC certified; we rely on several suppliers - mainly large international paper groups - to whom we have licensed the production of our packaging, which uses an internationally patented protection solution, NakPack. All this is to minimise breakages, reduce the amount of cardboard used and ease and speed of assembly while still guaranteeing maximum safety in the transport of wine and spirits, passing the strict crash tests necessary to obtain the certifications of the main international couriers.” Roberta Longhi of Glugulp! confirms that the search for more sustainable solutions crosses over between platforms and producers in a situation where sustainability is also an essential lever in consumers’ purchasing process. “Many Maison and Vigneron have reviewed their packaging choices: the most striking example is the ‘second skin case’, the eco-sustainable packaging made by the Italian paper company Pusterla 1880, chosen by Maison Ruinart for Champagne Blanc de Blancs and Rosé in place of traditional coffrets. It is an entirely recyclable wrapper made of 100% wood fibres, with a silky surface, lighter, more resistant and light-proof to preserve the integrity of the wine’s taste. Another example among our producers is Maxime and Anna Ullens of Domaine de Marzilly, who have chosen a vegetable-based ink for their labels and opted for low-CO2 printing. For Glugulp! shipments, we rely on sustainable, reliable and safe packaging: the WinePulp inner packaging is plant-derived, made of 100% recovered cellulose pulp, recyclable and biodegradable. In this way, each bottle we send out is enclosed in a pair of wrappers that protects and keeps it stables during transport. The outer shipping box - made of reinforced double-wave cardboard to mitigate impact - is self-assembling with a closure designed to avoid the use of plastic or adhesive. In addition, all boxes are sealed with branded anti-burglar straps to protect the contents from tampering.”

Hybrid future

If during 2020, as a result of various lockdowns, the delivery market has found itself absorbing and replacing consumption that would typically have been satisfied by eating and drinking out, 2021 will be the real test of whether this new habit has taken root enough to become part of consumers’ daily routine. Everyone agrees that the future of delivery is likely to be about hybrid experiences, with online and offline, pop-up shops and online tasting classes working together harmoniously as a single ecosystem. At Tannico, they are strong on the experiences of the past year: “We have adapted to the new requirements by accelerating in 2020 the home entertainment projects that were already being developed, such as the Tannico Wine Tasting online, which allowed Tannico customers or simple enthusiasts to taste from home in the company of the major exponents of Italian wineries: Cantine Ferrari with Marcello Lunelli, Antonio Rallo of Donnafugata and Klaus Gasser of Cantine Terlano. We have also experimented with new ways of doing events, collaborating, for example, with Veuve Clicquot in organising two master experiences directly at home.” Winelivery is, on the other hand, working on the opening of pop-up stores, the first of which in Milan, the city where the platform was born, where the serving service will be accompanied by delivery. The store will be the testing ground for bringing the hybrid experience of delivery and on-site tasting to other cities in Italy. Wine delivery is a phenomenon that can only grow in the future: the strategic consulting firm Nomisma estimates that in 2019 wine e-commerce was worth €200 million in Italy and that the numbers will have doubled in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period last year. The market is split between 17% of large-scale retailers and 83% of pure players such as Tannico, Winelivery and Glugulp!, which also act as a tool to put small producers in direct contact with those who want not only to drink well but also to make wine an experience. And for these experiences to be memorable, the sensory experience of packaging will be a more fundamental component than ever.

PAGE 32

GIN, THE ALTERNATIVE

It has a history of at least eight centuries, as adventurous as it is imaginative. Today, gin is back in the spotlight among spirits thanks to the inventiveness of distillers and barmen and the creative energy of packaging designers and art directors: a choral and international success. We talked about this with Paolo Insinga and Lindsey Jones of Interbrand, who revealed the secrets of their precious packaging, and then took a virtual trip into the world of Italian distilleries, from Trentino to Sardinia.

BY MARILDE MOTTA

The journey of gin (from the Latin iuniperus, meaning juniper, its basic ingredient) starts in Salerno. The distillate originated as a ‘medicament’ in the Salerno Medical School, where, as early as the 9th century, doctors and apothecaries used juniper berries together with other botanical varieties for therapeutic purposes. Then someone discovered that the mixture was not a bad thing to drink in joyful, or conversely dangerous, circumstances. In the Netherlands and Belgium, in the 16th century, gin was not only used to cheer people up in battle but was also reworked into a local product, which has since been called jenever and is still protected under this name. At the time of the great trade routes to the Indies, gin reached distant shores. In England, this aromatic spirit reached the height of its consumption in the 18th century, to such an extent that laws were passed restricting libations, but it also found ingenious distillation acrobats who created ‘variations on a theme’: Plymouth gin, London gin, Old Tom. In the early 1900s, gin in the USA formed an alliance with literature and cinema; its transformative soul helped it become indispensable in cocktails, beginning its dizzying climb towards high society. Having travelled around the world, gin is now back where it started, and in Italy, there is a flourishing of craft distilleries that are reinventing it. This reawakening of interest is taking place in parallel in other countries, where projects are pervaded by great creativity both in the composition of the bouquet of botanicals and in the design of the bottles. Old ideas about this distillate are disappearing, starting with the colour - no longer just crystal clear, but also pink, yellow, blue and green - and continuing with an increasingly rich and heterogeneous combination of ingredients, aromatic combinations and surprises for the palate.

Gin between local and global

It is one of the world’s most popular spirits, as rooted in its historical and geographical origins as it is capable of being transformist and even irreverent towards tradition. Paolo Insinga, Executive Creative Director of Interbrand’s Italian office, gives an overview of the main trends in total packaging design for gin. “There has been a substantial change over the last decade, and small craft distilleries have given a boost to the growth of the gin market. Particularly in Italy, gin packaging has been freer from stylistic constraints than other spirits and other countries with a longer gin tradition. The container represents a decisive break from the norm, as in the case of Engine gin (packaged in a tin reminiscent of vintage engine oil packaging, editor’s note), where not only shapes but also materials from very different sectors are used. Strong concepts and the possibility of developing a narrative around the product, naturally supported by a very brilliant production, are crucial.” Lindsey Jones, Executive Director, Client Partnerships at Interbrand in London, adds, “Gin has a long history and a very creative present that is confronted with a multitude of product varieties. Careful attention to the botanicals and other ingredients has helped it become established and preferred by an increasingly broad audience. In addition, storytelling has helped, as in the case of Hendricks gin, to attract a younger audience. Monkey 47 has also upset traditional codes by presenting a monkey on the label and developing an ironic and irreverent communication. On the other hand, Tanqueray refers to tradition and the shape of its bottle, inspired by art deco, with communication based on codes that evoke refinement and charm.” Jones goes on to discuss the variety of products and how the identities are reflected in the packaging. “You could classify gins into three areas: craft and limited production, origin-driven and aroma-driven. The packaging structure and label graphics interpret these three classifications. For example, Brooklyn gin is a limited production gin; its message is one of craftsmanship and authenticity, so the glass bottle has a square shape with an embossed copper label. On the other hand, the bottle of Ophir is influenced by the opulent aroma with spicy notes that bring to mind the Orient and the spice route. The aromatic component of Bloom gin is decidedly floral, so the bottle is sleek with light touch decoration that clearly positions this distillate as delicate and suitable for a female audience.” On current trends, Jones adds, “Bottle design is increasingly inspired by perfumery as gin and perfumes are built on the alchemy of aromas and are precious liquids. Different materials are being used for the closure, each with its own identity, and the focus is also on the experience of opening. Ceramic is another trendy material, and the shape does not necessarily follow the function of the liquor bottle but leaves open the possibility of reuse, for example, as a flower vase. Finally, packaging designers are also called upon to think about sustainability. For instance, Cantium gin offers reusable containers while Rock Rose gin provides refills with which the ceramic bottle can be refilled.” Another two-part discussion on a particular aspect: geographical identity and export strategies. According to Paolo Insinga, “Italy is known for the numerous varieties of products guaranteed by EU denomination and protection marks, but it’s also famous for its rich biodiversity, which plays a decisive role in the case of gin. Many gin labels take advantage of this opportunity and speak of the people, the place, the spirit that animates them, the craftsmanship. The small new producers have limited economic resources, but they develop great creativity in their approach to the market. Lindsey Jones points out: “The UK is now the world’s largest producer and exporter of gin with brands such as Gordons, Beefeater and Hendricks among the seven best-selling brands in the world. The UK is synonymous with gin with highly regarded brands in geographic areas where gin still has an influence. However, it’s not just geographical origin that counts; creativity and originality also play an important role, especially as the market is becoming saturated and distilleries need to raise the bar on brand design and packaging design.”

Trip to the distillery

A bottle for every distillery and often a bottle for every label of gin produced by the same distillery. In Italy, there are hundreds of labels and many artisan distilleries that move easily between multinationals and large companies, thanks to a bold and exuberant inventiveness, expressed in the product as much as in the packaging and its set of labels, decorations, jewel closures, mini monographs and cases specially constructed to celebrate the unboxing experience. Anna Boschi, who works in marketing at Distilleria Bertagnolli, explains the concept that inspired the packaging design of their gin. “In 2019, as Distilleria Bertagnolli approached its 150th year of activity, the need arose to renew the celebratory line that paid homage to the founder Giulia de Kreutzenberg who, together with her husband Edoardo Bertagnolli, founded the distillery in Mezzocorona in 1870. That was how Gin 1870 - Raspberry Dry Gin started, a gin with raspberry, pepper - obviously juniper - and two other secret botanicals, housed in a bottle with a fine and elegant diamond pattern, reminiscent of the Belle Époque period. The evocative label entirely wraps around the central section of the bottle. It has a circular frame on the front in which the name of the product and the Distilleria Bertagnolli 1870 logo are inserted, accompanied by the new payoff “cuore trentino” (Trentino heart), created for the restyling of the entire range of Bertagnolli products. The illustrated label tells how Giulia de Kreutzenberg came to know about the gin product; some scenes of this happy story are represented in lithographic style, and the photo of the noblewoman found in the distillery’s historical archives. The distinguishing feature is the blue varnish on the bottle, which matches the colour of the label and the plexiglass stopper. The bottle is completed by a collar showing the year of its foundation.” A few kilometres further on and in Trentino we find another gin, another identity, another story. Simon Schweigkofler, Roner Distillerie’s marketing manager, tells us, “We have entrusted design with telling the story of our Alpine Gin Z44, whose special feature is the Swiss stone pine (Zirbel in German) harvested on the Cono Bianco near our distillery at an altitude of 1850 metres. The transparent container shows the snow-covered mountain on the back of the bottle. The illustration depicts the Alpine botanicals typical of the forests surrounding us and gives the gin its unmistakable aroma. Nature, genuine ingredients and our strong bond with the land are the identifying elements of the brand, which have been developed through the illustrations in the graphic representation.” However, on the shores of Lake Como, a gin has come into being that “bewitches” the palate. Marco Rivolta, co-founder of RIVO, traces for us the path that the mind took in the creation of this gin and its bottle. “For centuries, local women searched the meadows around Lake Como for herbs and flowers to prepare medicines and remedies. History would call them witches. We consider them pioneers of unique potions. And it is precisely the element of witches and magic that inspired the packaging: geometric lines chase each other to create abstract figures, which in the details echo two elements of that territory, the mountains and the waves of the lake. The idea was to create a design that recalls Italian craftsmanship, but at the same time, is modern and able to present itself internationally. Even the bottle is intended to evoke the element of magic with its unique ampoule shape. Today, expert ethno-botanists are entrusted with the task of hand-picking and selecting the 12 types of botanicals from the local flora, certifying their origin and guaranteeing their quality.” Rivolta concludes: “It was essential that not only the product but also the packaging, should recall our lake. The challenge was to create it without using clichés that had already been seen. Hence the decision to abstract natural elements with new and original shapes and illustrations. We also wanted to give the shapes a certain intimacy, making them directly recognisable only to those who know our story. In other words, a label to be discovered in detail and little by little.” From Lombardy we move on to Emilia, where Lucia Palazzini, Head of Marketing

at Casoni Fabbricazione Liquori, fascinates us with a story of mists and tabarri (‘tabards’, editor’s note). “Tabard gin is distilled in Finale Emilia, in the Bassa Modenese area, using a technique that is as old as the history of the Casoni factory, which has been producing liqueurs since 1814 in this land, which is always shrouded in fog in winter,” says Palazzini. “Here, our gin is as strong and enveloping as a sip of fog. The symbol of this mist is the tabard, after which the gin is named, which is a man’s cloak typical of the area. It’s also a source of inspiration for the screen-printing on the bottle, which depicts the low Modenese area enveloped in mist, with a man wearing a tabard in the centre. The logo graphically shows the representation of this figure in the second A of the name so that it becomes a representation of the brand.” We could go from region to region across the Italian mainland and find dozens of gin producers, but instead, we’ll take a giant leap and land on Sardinia where Distilleria Silvio Carta, after years of testing and in-depth studies, has created Giniu, a gin that wants to tell the story of Sardinia and its scents. Elio Carta, CEO, introduces us to the world of his gin. “For Giniu, we decided to use a unique and highly recognisable bottle, with a clear reference to the packaging of the best French perfumes. The bottle is further enhanced by a cork stopper with a steel top produced by a craftsman in the local forge. Giniu 517 is for the most demanding connoisseur: the bottle, dressed in platinum and glittering, contains the Riserva edition of the top-of-the-range gin from the Silvio Carta distillery. A product of the highest quality, represented by the packaging as much as by the name 517, the identification number of the plot of land in Sardinia where the juniper is harvested at an altitude of over 1,500 metres. So it can be defined as a Cru. And on the elements that contribute to the uniqueness of Giniu, Carta continues, “We decided to screen print the label directly on the glass of the bottle. By choice, the producer’s name does not appear on the front of the bottle but can only be found in the required information on the back. The elements to which more weight has been given are the lettering of the product name and the clear references to its Sardinian origins. Giniu 517 has no label; all the information is engraved directly on the metal.”

The gin unboxing experience

Such special bottles become precious elements that characterise the display in bars and clubs where good drinking becomes inseparable from beauty and an engaging aesthetic experience. These bottles are also signalling aspects of a distinct taste and a very personal lifestyle, so the bottle of gin is becoming the fashion gift. Consequently, creativity is also exerted on the secondary packaging, which enables the delightful unboxing experience. On secondary packaging, Anna Boschi of Bertagnolli says, “Two types of secondary packaging have been developed for our gin: a simple case, which echoes the style and content expressed on the label, and a special tasting pack, containing a bottle and a tumbler screen-printed with the logo and the circular frame in which it is inserted.” Not unlike Bertagnolli, Marco Rivolta, for his RIVO gin, is also thinking of the essential role of secondary packaging, which “gives added value as a gift, or when sold in specialist wine and food shops. The packaging takes up the graphic elements of the label and allows you to deepen and enrich the storytelling already present on the bottle.” Elio Carta of Distilleria Silvio Carta is even more convinced of the role of the secondary packaging in creating the surprise effect. “Opening the wooden box personalised with the fire-printed design of the Giniu label is a very satisfying experience. Giniu 517, though, is marketed in a precious black wooden box, with the logo engraved on the metal and set into the cap. Furthermore, the inside of the box is painted red to bring out the shine of the platinum even more.”

PAGE 47

MACHINE LEARNING: IF A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

Automatic file editing, image classification, object identification in photos and videos, asset and product monitoring, and even emotion and action recognition based on Face Recognition. According to the Observatories of the Politecnico di Milano, these are the most promising applications of artificial intelligence that use machine learning to analyse data.

BY LORENZO CAPITANI Why do certain sites ask you to recognise abstruse letters, select traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, bicycles and buses, or click on “I am not a robot”? It is not only to verify that you are human beings and not computers with bad intentions (so-called bots) but also to train artificial intelligence. Captcha tests (that’s the name of those little quizzes, from “Caught you!”), based on the more classic Turing test to distinguish computers from humans, are needed not only for security but above all to teach machines to read and recognise specific objects within a picture. Science fiction from the Matrix? Absolutely not, as we shall see. In 1997, researchers at AltaVista, to prevent bots from adding URLs to their search engine in a fraudulent way, had the idea of exploiting in reverse the features of the OCR programme of the Brother scanner they had in their office. If a text is garbled, overlaps with another, the characters change, or the background is not homogeneous, they thought, the machine can no longer interpret it, but a human can. This intuition was also exploited by the Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburgh when it started the digitisation of its library, and had the idea of submitting the dubious words identified by OCR to the users in the form of Captcha: if a person succeeds in correctly identifying a known word, then she/he will also identify the unknown one, and when three people give the same answer, this can be filed by the system as correct. It worked so well that in September 2009, this technology was bought by Google.

Experience

Today, artificial intelligence and machine learning - i.e. the mechanism whereby systems learn and improve their performance and responsiveness based on the data they use - are almost everywhere. From Siri responding appropriately to questions, learning from what you ask her and how satisfactory her answer is, to the magic wand in Photoshop that recognises a subject and knows how to isolate it from the background (Filtro su colore di fondo.jpg), not just based on colour difference, but because it can recognise and distinguish individual elements. But artificial intelligence also comes into play when we interact with banks, shop online or use social media, read the news or choose a movie on Netflix, right up to the car that recognises road signs and lanes. Even outside the context we are interacting with at that moment - and in unexpected ways - machine learning mechanisms are constantly coming into play to make our experience efficient, easy and safe. Let’s think about images: Google’s free service for storing them, for instance, on the one hand gives us space to store our photos and on the other uses them to learn. Faithful to the Faustian pact according to which ‘if you don’t pay, you are the product’, it is we who authorise, more or less spontaneously and unconsciously, the use of our information, which is not only what we share on social networks but, above all, all the rest of it: from email attachments to the documents we store in the Cloud, to the images from security cameras that pass through and are stored on the network. Beyond the aspects of privacy and profiling, which then take a back seat between capricious authorisations (Do you want the service? Give me access to the data!) or those granted lightly, artificial intelligence probes and learns from everything it is fed; the computational power and the goodness of the algorithm do the rest. In a sort of Moebius strip, the AI analyses data, processes them, learns, and provides data that it reuses to analyse, process, and so on. An example is the filters in certain apps, like FaceApp, that alter the appearance of our selfies. The photo goes to their servers, is stored with millions of others, processed according to the filters set and sent back to the app: just keeping the processed version or deleting it means teaching AI to do better. The same happens with the new neural filters in the 2021 version of Photoshop, which from this release always works closely with the Adobe cloud, to such an extent that ‘Save As’ proposes it as the default destination. The ‘smooth skin’ or ‘sky replacement’ filters are extremely realistic but the ones that really impress with their accuracy are the ‘make-up transfer’, whereby make-up is applied from an uploaded target photo, and the ‘intelligent portrait’, which alters the expression of a face in a range from happiness to anger. And it is no coincidence that these filters ask the user, after the effect is applied, whether they are satisfied or not.

Learning from your mistakes But how does a computer learn? To put it briefly, it does so by classifying, processing and learning from feedback on its work, according to more or less supervised algorithms. The logic that exploits the continuous correction of results based on a given model, even with human intervention, is the most widely used today. As Oracle explains, “just as a child learns to identify fruits by memorising them from a picture book, so the algorithm is trained starting off from a data set that is already labelled and classified.” In contrast, unsupervised algorithms “use an independent approach, in which the computer learns to identify processes and patterns on its own without any guidance: in this case, it is as if a child learns to identify fruits by looking at colours and patterns, without memorising the names with the help of a teacher: it will look for similarities between images and divide them into groups, assigning each group the new label.” This is how Apple’s Face ID works: it reads a face, makes a map of it and saves it. Then, every time you want to unlock the device, it compares the face at that moment with the saved map. The recognition rating does the rest: if it looks like the model, the phone unlocks, and anything that differs is saved to refine the map. So, for example, the phone unlocks whether you are wearing glasses or not. It is evident that the two methods end up improving each other. Once a new label is identified, it, in turn, becomes a model. The process is summarised by the formula put forward in 2017 by Robin Bordol, CEO of Crowdflower: AI = TD (Training Data) + ML (Machine Learning) + HITL (Human In The Loop)

Image Recognition

Today, the AI landscape is taking off: the various machine learning engines for data analysis operate mainly based on neural

networks for processing photos, videos and texts that can recognise shapes, colours and even follow moving objects. According to the Observatories of the Politecnico di Milano, the most promising applications are the automatic editing of files, the classification of images, the identification of objects within photos and videos, and the monitoring of assets and products and even recognition of emotions and actions based on Face Recognition. First of all, a large number of features are extracted from the image, which is composed of pixels. Without going into too much detail, once each image has been converted into thousands of features, you can begin to train a model. In the case of photos representing, for example, undamaged products and faulty products, we can train the machine to recognise one of the two categories. The more images we use for each category, the better a model can be trained: once it has learned, it can recognise an unknown image. For example, let’s take the image (Apple.jpg). If at the first processing it doesn’t recognise the Apple logo and mistakes it for the bitten apple silhouette (we tested it, and it doesn’t happen), after it has been trained, it will recognise it correctly.

Google Vision AI Let’s carry out an experiment. At https:// cloud.google.com/vision, Google provides a simulator of its Vision AI. In the picture, it recognises in a few seconds that there is a person, specifically a woman, and that she is wearing a hat (it even recognises that it is a fedora), a coat, and necklaces. It assigns a recognition rate to each of the details it detects, and so the algorithm tells us that there are 94% shoes, 87% sunglasses. But it doesn’t stop there; it associates labels (bag, trees, trench coat, fashion), classifies facial expressions (joy), verifies how safe the image is for sensitive content (sex, violence, racial content), creates a colour map with values in RGB and their coverage in percentages, and excludes background colours to avoid false positives. Finally, it isolates individual parts and maps their coordinates. This little experiment alone reveals the potential of the instrument. Feed it all the images of your products and teach it to recognise the details that interest you, correct it when it makes mistakes, and you’ll have a wealth of data to use. How? Let’s take a fashion e-commerce site: using this data, I could build a gallery based on colours, distinguish worn photos from still-life, push logoed garments into specific markets or towards particular users who appreciate these details, aggregate by product type or gender and so on, without anyone having spent time classifying the images and, just as importantly, without anyone pre-determining what to look for. And this is also the case for exploring new or unconsidered areas of business. The basic Google system works across a broad spectrum and has the advantage of offering all the strength of the Mountain View giant’s ecosystem and experience, as well as its ability to compute and integrate with its other Cloud services. Vision AI can work silently on the images stored on its servers, materialise the extracted data and make it available. The decision is then made on which approach to take, whether supervised or unsupervised, and even as far as to intervene on the algorithm. Once the data has been extracted, you can proceed by inclusion or exclusion of particular results (e.g. I’m not going to show a bikini in certain markets’ e-commerce sites) or on the best match, i.e. how close an image is to a given example. A tangible example is the Reverse Image Search tool on Google’s home page. Just feed it a picture, and it will instantly find all the similar ones, up to finding the same one in other size variants. I can automatically base typical suggestions such as matches and You May Also Like on tools like these.

Other approaches

An equally powerful alternative is Amazon Rekognition, which can be activated directly in AWS, probably Amazon’s most popular cloud computing and hosting service. It can identify objects, people, text, scenarios and activities in photos and videos and recognise content in text as well. The uses here are numerous and depend on the business: they range from facial recognition (e.g. celebrities, authorised persons, employees) of objects and scenes to the identification of forbidden content to carry out moderation or human verification, from text recognition to the identification of one’s own products among the photos published on social media or present on the shelves of a shop for market research. For example, Nike’s experiment of filming all the participants in the 2019 Tokyo Marathon on a wire to identify and classify the brands and models of shoes used by participants is interesting. Amazon Rekognition is directly integrated with Amazon Augmented AI (Amazon A2I) to easily implement human review for inappropriate image detection. Amazon A2I provides an integrated human review workflow for image moderation, enabling easy review and validation of Amazon Rekognition’s predictions. Among the independent platforms, the main one is undoubtedly Clarifai, which adopts a supervisable approach with lots of workflow to manage learning according to specific user needs; it adopts compelling solutions for image, video and text recognition in particular contexts such as food. Not only can it identify individual products or ingredients but also preparations and dishes. For travel, on the other hand, it can also extrapolate the location, services offered or characteristics of locations, hotels and residences from a photo. The strength of Clarifai’s algorithms lies in their ability to work in circumscribed areas with known and specific characteristics, thus increasing the precision of the results. One example is the automatic recognition of garments and accessories or the classification of textures and patterns for fashion. The approach, in this case, is not only to recognise text and make it editable but also to classify it according to its content to moderate unwanted content, search for keywords and concepts, or carry out web reputation analyses.

Information architecture

Going from having little data, perhaps painstakingly extracted by hand, to this enormous mass can be disorienting. Before asking yourself what to classify, you should ask yourself why to do so, perhaps starting from a specific need. The great thing about these solutions is that they do not follow linear processes: they are like networks, and they are scalable. You can move in any direction and easily change the depth of analysis just by changing the algorithm and reprocessing the files. For example, I could start with just tagging for classification and then take advantage of identifying objects to which to link actions. This is what happens, for instance, with the Ikea app, where in the photos of the environment, the objects have been associated with hot spots that link to the product details with the relative colour variants and the possibility of adding them directly to the shopping cart. As you can see, these tools, although strongly machine-based, still require human intervention to refine the result. It is a paradigm shift: I leave the most onerous, time-consuming and low-value work to the machine and concentrate on training the algorithm. A good approach that can be followed is to proceed in steps. First, let’s take the tags of the photo (shutterstock.jpg) taken from Shutterstock: it has more than 200 generic keywords associated with it, ranging from the apt “woman” to the incomprehensible “quadrant” - though “lily” and even “flower” are completely missing - and there’s also “wear” and “vintage”. Then, if my context is fashion, I skim off the errors, add tags based on specific semantics: that “wear” will become the “stonewashed” of jeans, the weave of the band will be identified as “diamond-shaped”; this is because AI examines visual signs (vectors, shapes and colours) and compares them with reference models, and it is precisely on taxonomies, classifications and localisations that we need to work.

360-degree AI

If these automatisms save repetitive actions on images, think what can be done with a video, where moving images require almost frame-by-frame intervention. In this case, Sensei, Adobe’s AI engine, is truly state-of-the-art. We mentioned above the artificial intelligence applied to Photoshop tools, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What Adobe proposes is a genuine ecosystem, made up of ‘small’ functionalities, such as the neural filters in Photoshop, present in the new releases of the applications that simplify the work of graphic designers and creatives; but above all, it is made up of powerful processing engines integrated in the Experience Cloud and Marketing Cloud suites, the family of products for digital business, which allows end-to-end coverage of the entire production and distribution process, reducing bottlenecks. Let’s think about a library of images of products stored on Adobe DAM: Sensei can automatically identify the objects contained, isolate them, crop them, dynamically obtaining the cutting coordinates photo by photo, and then create other renditions ready for distribution or prepared for subsequent reuse. The advantage becomes exponential when we think of videos. Let’s consider an editorial video for an e-commerce site. Adobe covers the stages from production - with the editing and montage of the film, the recognition of details (the products), the assignment of specific tags for the CEO and SEM of the site, the application of dynamic areas that even follow moving subjects to which events can be associated - to distribution. By that we mean the construction of the web page that hosts it and the CMS to deliver the media responsively according to the device from which you are browsing regardless of the size and shape of the user’s screen (Sensei’s AI comes to detect the point of focus and to operate the cuts accordingly, ensuring that the chosen subject is always sharp and in the middle of the scene). The work carries on up to the collection and analysis of all the classic analytics data. Today, access to data has become much more straightforward, awareness of its value is growing, leading to a transformation of business processes. The vital thing is not to let yourself be frightened by its potentially immense vastness: in that way, you can learn how to navigate in the sea of information without finding yourself swept away or completely washed up.