For this year’s Christmas wishes we have changed format, and instead of cards, we have launched the poster-manifesto configuration, commissioning an artisanal production from one of our business partners, with an equally “unconventional” limited letterpress print run.
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Unconventional method: 5X Letterpress in collab with Libri Finti Clandestini used bubble wrap for letterpress printing
The theme that we have decided to describe is the outcome of this internal development path, and therefore of our manifesto, but to a degree it is also connected to the historic context in which we find ourselves, where contrasts and contradictions can be seen in every field and in every sector, at every moment of life in society. Physical versus digital, Identity versus transformation, finishing with the highly topical “should we open up or shut down?”
However we have realised that our contradictions are very convenient for us. For example, we have understood that being part of a large multinational group does not prevent us from defining ourselves a small design boutique. And that we can perform at highest levels both with large international brands and with small to medium-sized Italian businesses. We are appreciated for our analytical, disciplined and consultancy-based approach, but also for the power of our intuitions and the originality of our ideas, in ever-different projects. We are a group of designers and professionals with very different backgrounds. So, contrasts are our hallmark.
On the subject of contrasts and points of view: we wanted to put ourselves in “our customers’ shoes”. After having chosen the poster format, we developed a brief by launching a contest inside the company, for which everyone could propose their idea of how to interpret the theme of contrast.
We have chosen an exceptional partner, 5X Letterpress, who define themselves as “unconventional letterpress printers” for the creative procedures associated with the use of presses, hand-set type and cliché plates, along with more unusual and experimental elements which may include found objects: metal mesh, bubble wrap, old rubber flooring, etc.
Our Christmas wishes therefore take the form of the manifesto “I A – Intuizione Analitica” (A I – Analytical Intuition), the logical conclusion of the fortunate contradiction between two terms that represent us, hand-printed by an unconventional printer in a limited edition, and with 16 subjects that together make up a larger, more extensive composition.
Happy holidays and long live contrasts!
