In case you are not acquainted with the Italian designer Achille Castiglioni, allow me to share one of the most beautiful experiences in the year-long journey of my Master's in Visual Brand Design at Domus Academy.
Achille Castiglioni was born in Milan on February 16th,1918, in 1944 he graduated in Architecture from Politecnico of Milan (taken from Fondazione Achille Castiglioni's website: http://fondazioneachillecastiglioni.it/en/achille-castiglioni-en/).
The Fondazione, which is also where Achille's studio used to be and now is a museum, (please visit and say ciao to Giovanna, Achille's daughter) gave the students of the Master in Visual Brand Design of Domus Academy the task to "give a voice to three the objects that Achille Castiglioni designed"; lampadina, sella, and the Alessi cutlery.
Lampadina is a lamp that consists of a light bulb with a diffused section and a film reel as a base. This allows Lampadina to be placed either on a desk or on a wall almost effortlessly. The diffused section of the light bulb makes the light source easier on the user's eyes. The sell is an object that the concept was to create a seat that could be assembled easily like a milker's seat (refer to the Italian milker's seat). The end product is a bicycle seat with a circular base that makes up an unstable seat that is placed inside of the bars of Italy some time ago near the public phone. This reason for the instability was because Italians love to talk, and when phones became available publicly, a solution to "call-time-per-person problem" needed to be found. The sella provides an unstable seat so calls could be done quicker. The seat post is pink in honor of whomever wins the Giro d'Italia bicycle race, the winner will get to wear a pink jersey. Lastly, the cutlery that now the selling rights belong to Alessi, is inspired by the square pencils of carpenters. By changing the design of the handle, the cutlery items can be hold in a way that is more comfortable than other handle designs and easier to mass produce. Safe to say, Achille Castiglioni created his own universe from the objects of our universe, to then share it with the world.
The story of sella caught my attention strongly and decided to give a voice to it with the following guerrilla marketing.
The concept of this project was to make italians "remember" to call home. Through an installation that served the purpose of a XXI Century phonebooth (calls over Skype) and a memento to the Fondazione (directing traffic to the studio). But the project had a branding that could work (Fun + Action), there was something that was not just there yet...
And out of the dark, a spark...
Using the elements of gioco + the branding guidelines made by studio Caso (http://www.casostudio.it/) + the recurrent imagery of a light bulb lighting up to describe an idea + Achille's desire to find unconventional solutions to quasi-nonexistent problems... I got to the right solution... Bright Solutions.
And what I think that the moment I was most proud of, was to give Lampadina a face that reminds us of a great designer.
The project did not end there, for we had only had given Lampadina a face, a brand.. but not a voice. The concept developed further into an interactive guerrilla marketing (as you can see it is what I love to do) leading designers and non-designers in the Milano area to think like Achille and find solutions to "everyday problems", in the case that the user would not know who Achille was, there is a link to the information. The goal is to participate in a contest, "I Created a Solution" in which the winners will get to have their solutions created and sponsored by different agencies in Milano. At the end of the day, Achille was from Milano, we are in Milano, and its in everyone's best interest to find the solutions to this crazy city.
Using silkscreen printing as the method I prefer to create posters, I set on the endeavor of finding ink that could reflect light like 3M material. Up until today, I am yet to find this elusive material for other projects I have lined up.
On a personal note:
You might not know me, but there is a love I have for Italy and all things related to it as deep as the oceano. It is something that I can only define it in a very romanticized and overly cheesy way, but please know... After interacting with Milan, Fondazione Achille Castiglioni and some special people, for the first time I felt the senses of purpose and belonging.
