For 3 years now I have been taking care of the image and communication of the Abbiatearte art exhibition, promoted by the Municipality of Abbiategrasso and by the Consulta Giovani and directed by Edoardo Grittini, who is its creator and curator. I believe that this article serves to show and explain how commitment and good communication can raise an initiative born in the province and make it an event in which artists and creatives participate today who will surely become the future of the Milanese art scene. First of all, unlike the classic events created by a small provincial town, the organizers turned to professional designers from the beginning, investing in communication and visuals. This, both to have a strong identity and to transmit trust towards the artists and users of the exhibition. A clean, coordinated and contemporary communication immediately attracted attention and made people talk about itself, giving authority to the event itself. To achieve this goal, various paths were followed, first of all that of a research phase on what contemporary design was linked to art and on how it should involve and not scare even the most "fasting" on the subject.
After this great and complex phase of research, a decidedly captivating branding solution was obtained, which led the users of the exhibition to understand the seriousness but also the age of the artists on display (from 20 to 30 years old). We opted for a minimal but colorful design, deriving the tints from the colors of the municipal logo, bringing them back together with an abstract pattern that lays its foundations both on the typology and topography of the territory, and on the concept of the splashes of color imagined in a atelier of a painter. Being the city of Abbiategrasso located on a hill near the valley of the Ticino river, which in turn has a very curvilinear stretch and with characteristic islets, we were inspired by topographic metric relief maps and then recognized in them shapes similar to those of stains cast during a painting job. All reinforced by colors that make the connection with the territory intuitive and convey a fresh and young image, as well as creative. It was decided to combine this texture with a very strong and decisive san serif geometric typography, to make any concept clear and bring a good balance to the abstract composition.
The graphic concept was then declined on various media, from social media to posters, to communicate the initiative both locally and democratically. Given that the same is aimed at anyone and has a wide age target, the use of social media alone would have been restrictive towards those who are not users of current communication technologies. For this reason, and having an eye on ecology in any case, we opted for the printing of posters, playbills and postcards to spread the initiative and bring it to every inhabitant of the area. These classic tools, combined with effective and consciously branded posts, have managed to communicate exclusivity and arouse the interest of most towards the initiative, but not only, also the recruitment and dissemination of the municipal call for research of exhibitors were helped. The artists, observing a level of care and design, responded en masse thus giving the judges (including myself, being one of them) the arduous task of assigning to the most deserving and talented the few places available for the exhibition that it is housed in the evocative setting of the basement of the Abbiategrasso Visconteo Castle.
To find out more about the exhibition and its artists, I refer you to the social networks of the Youth Council of Abbiategrasso, where you can find not only the posts with the attached branding, but also video interviews of the artists and previews of the works: CGAbbiategrasso
