Ciclope!
Let’s start from the beginning. From Stone.
Who are you? Asked one of the first giants from our past.
Many are the giants that have carried us so far and that we wish to honour in a series of paper artifacts. Subjects that aim at showing how small our perspective is without them, once we get off those sturdy shoulders we are sitting on.
Who are you? I am Nobody, precisely.
Before pixels, apps, Google and Wikipedia, books were the only messengers of culture and entertainment. The history of our trade was born during a 15th century, rich in cultural evolutions, that strengthened Italy’s foundations as a unique cultural country and, at the same time, all that communication design represents today.
An artisan and design knowledge that was born by printing 5 million books in Venice with the Speyer brothers, Manuzio and Griffo. Over the centuries, thanks to the genius of Giambattista Bodoni, they lit up Italy all over the world. We are the home of creativity, culture and design. But we are just and only dwarves sitting on the shoulders of these and other giants that we want to honour in a paper artifact, a vehicle of emotions.
In these years, where books and culture are undergoing a bad spell, in which printing is thought to be dead and everything becomes “light”… we wanted to start anew from Venice, gifting a new identity to books. A new look and a new function. In order to introduce you to a new concept of books. A book which isn’t just made up of stories, characters, actions, but… a book which is made of glances. Stares, understandings, moments… spent together.
Visual architectures, enclosed in a book block of paper, on the surface of which, every day, different shadows will continuously appear, aimed only at narrating the passing of time and escorting the eye during its rustling.
A new concept of books, that shapes the object as expression in itself of the story. A narrative evolution and an embrace of the book in a world composed by screens and light which is far too dark compared to a past in which craftsmanship became a high-level manufacture design.
Hour after hour, through the shadows that are created and bloom throughout the day, a visual tale is set up between the environment and the observer, devoted to emphasize the present.
From the moment it is freed from its packaging, Ciclope! starts narrating the time spent together and day by day it will grow with us. The paper will change, yellowing and swelling, stained by the memories that we would have lived hand in hand, becoming a silent narrator of the fantastic journey that life represents. If it were to be smudged, scribbled on by our child, hot or cold, Ciclope! will remember… never forgetting anything.
A continuous game of glances. A silence filled by the power of printing, in an interweaving of art, history and design. A research about the book’s function as expression of a story, be it visual or narrative.
Our project is especially environmentally friendly because it is a second life for paper. All the papers used are recycled paper, obtained post consumer use, and FSC Certified. From the waste the paper has been used to do new sheet and we used that for a series of artifacts that has the purpose to push people far away form the capitalism, speediness of our days, and go back to a slow perception of the word, a more pure and a more correct contact with the nature. An artifact that is a second life for paper, and that aim to stay with you forever, but still can be recycled and became again a third life… and so on.
Time and Beauty are the keys to Everything.
And you, What do you do about your time?