Images of Identity: Exploring Local Identity Through Visual Design

Abstract

The paper describes the investigation our research team carried out during the development of two design-oriented research projects in the area of communication and corporate design. Despite their diversity in size, context and structure both projects – the design of a wide corporate identity framework in the event of Milan’s 2015 EXPO and an exhibit of crafts hosted at the Triennale during Milan’s 2017 design week – have given us a unique opportunity to investigate an approach to territorial promotion based on conveying, through various design strategies and tailored artifacts, identity at a regional level in the rapidly transforming scenario of contemporary communication.

As we are in the first place a research unit and both projects intersected areas of research work that we had been previously confronted with and are central to our investigation interests we managed, beyond the immediate satisfaction of the communication needs of our commissioners, to direct our work both in a stimulating and productive directions.