nanetto!
Literally in english: tiny dwarf
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 dwarves sitting on the shoulders of these and other giants that we want to honour in a paper artifact, a vehicle of emotions.
Many are the giants that have carried us so far and we wanted to honour in a series of paper artifacts.
Pieces of furniture devoted to show how small our perspective is without them, once we get off those sturdy shoulders we are sitting on. Six visual architectures, enclosed in a book block of Fedrigoni paper, on the surface of which, every day, different shadows will continuously appear, narrating the passing of time and escorting the eye during its rustling.
Kinetic art pieces, sculpted by the movement of the sun and artificial lights, once the artifacts are hung on the wall. Then in the evening... when all the lights are turned off, and the night comes, everything come to an end. The morning after, at the new rising, everything starts again...
For months we have found ourselves cutting out, and out and out, removing, each time reshaping what remained, moved by the desire to communicate the essence of our idea. We have been looking not only for aesthetics — because this is not the only root of a communicative artifact — but we have been striving for a timeless design, which could be the harbinger of the message, and at the same time the essence of a "new" spirit to be disclosed, giving voice to those giants who transported us here, today.
We are often looking for something to accompany us through our time: a book, a song, a voice on the radio, a television program, a series on Netflix... we could say we feel protected in being cradled in our time.
From the moment it is freed from its packaging, Nanetto! 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, Nanetto! will remember… never forgetting anything.
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.
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.