Eyes on Barcelona – Graphic Days Torino 2017
How might we inspire the creative community of Turin through the example of a city that has gained international acclaim for the local ferment of its visual communication network?
→ WHEN
2017-2018
→ WHERE
Turin, Italy
→ CLIENT
Graphic Days Torino
→ TEAM
Marialuisa Dubla, Mateo Vaccaro, Fabio Guida
→ MY ROLE
I curated the Eyes On exhibition with my colleague. We developed the project’s scenario, conducted research, designed the visual identity, and carried out all the practical tasks involved in setting it up.
→ CHALLENGE
The main objective of the project Eyes On is to create a connection between the city of Turin (Italy) and another one through an exhibition and an editorial project.
The exhibition formed part of Graphic Days Torino vol. 2, a festival dedicated to visual communication in northern Italy. For Eyes On, we wanted to spread the culture of visual communication within our local community. We chose to approach this by highlighting a city known for its culture of visual communication, in order to stimulate conversation, reflection and inspiration.
→ CONCEPT
Eyes On aims to be a showcase for international design stories, stimulate reflection and share knowledge among the local creative community. The model city chosen was Barcelona. We and collected and data from the City Council (Ajuntament de Barcelona) and Open Data BCN and conducted a deep analysis.
Barcelona is a great example of how history, culture and society contribute to creating a rich creative environment that promotes the sharing of knowledge. As a guardian of its own culture and thanks to its strategic position, the city has always been and still is a destination for migrants and tourists – which gives it a central role from an international viewpoint.
We wanted our exhibition to communicate the main characteristics that inspire the creative environment of the Barcelona, with a focus on visual communication. To support our choice of the projects to showcase in our exhibition, we settled on four characteristics: internationality, social care, experimentation and cultural belonging. This list helped us narrow down the 12 different agencies from Barcelona with whom we collaborated with, which were chosen based on their work around the characteristics in our list.
→ LEARNINGS
Having to deal with a big event, we learned how to manage time and the different actors involved in the process.
We learned that, when communicating to a large audience, it’s important to effectively convey the message through simple and accessible design.
→ TOOLS USED
Desk research, interviews, field research, stakeholders maps, systems map, personas, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign
