Franco Grignani: Graphic and Typographic Freedom (11/22/2020) Posted in: videos - This lecture focused on Grignani's expressive and experimental use of type and graphics in advertising design from the late 1940s through the 1970s. "The future is in us because our design is in the future" is a statement… ... Read More
A whole life timeline (11/15/2020) Posted in: stories - Even looking back on his work as a whole, it’s impossible to confine Grignani to a specific movement, not least because he made a point to be different from everyone else.Despite his solitary research, he was highly influential… ... Read More
Two hundred exhibitions… (11/8/2020) Posted in: exhibits - The relevance of Franco Grignani's work and the continual evolution of his graphics, as well as the coherence of his methods, have always aroused lively interest among talented graphic designers. His experimental works and creations are still present… ... Read More
Trademarks (9/18/2022) Posted in: stories - This text by Franco Grignani was originally published in English for the introduction of the volume "3x trademarks", 1967, published by the Total Design agency (Wim Crouwel among the founders) in Amsterdam. The Italian version was published, with… ... Read More
Art and Science: Franco with some nuclear scientists (9/19/2021) Posted in: exhibits, stories - What was a graphic designer like Franco Grignani doing with two nuclear scientists from Euratom? Quite often, science and art are considered as the ‘two cultures’ dividing our society into two separate groups.However, important phenomena in science and… ... Read More
Some noteworthy works about Franco (9/5/2021) Posted in: edu - Franco Grignani’s works are still relevant and influential, which is evident in the number of young students attracted to his work. Every year, a number of students of all ages produce some noteworthy works.Here are some I recently… ... Read More
A monograph on Jeanne Grignani (7/11/2021) Posted in: books, edu - Since 2014, the students from the first year of the School of Design of the Polytechnic in Milan (Scuola di Design Politecnico di Milano) have been involved in the editing of a series dedicated to communication designers of… ... Read More
A virtual exhibit on Alfieri & Lacroix (7/4/2021) Posted in: exhibits - During COVID-19 time, a number of web platforms for virtual exhibitions and events have aroused. This is my personal contribution on Artsteps. In this exhibit you'll see 80 ads amongst the 170 produced since 1952 by Franco Grignani… ... Read More
The hyperbolics revealed (11/1/2020) Posted in: tips & tricks - In 1991 at the age of 83, Franco Grignani painted Two hyperbolic corners (Due angoli iperbolici) in black tempera. The painting is presented in a 51x51 cm format on Schoeller cardboard.It was donated to the painter Lorenzo Piemonti,… ... Read More
A colour-blind artist (10/25/2020) Posted in: stories - 'It's All Black And White' was the motto of a recent exhibition in London dedicated to Franco Grignani. But not all his artistic production was monochromatic, despite his colour-blindness! In fact, Grignani produced hundreds of colourful ads and… ... Read More
America! (10/18/2020) Posted in: exhibits, stories - As Patricia Belen and Greg D'Onofrio have recently underlined in a book printed in connection with a recent exhibit in New York (Italian Types, Graphic Designers from Italy in America), "The arrival of ambitious and original thinkers from… ... Read More
Vision 65 (10/11/2020) Posted in: stories - The 'Vision 65' conference, officially called 'Vision 65: World Congress on New Challenges to Human Communication', occurred at the Southern Illinois University of Carbondale from 21 to 23 October 1965 (in the midst of the beginning of the… ... Read More
Typomundus 20 & 20/2 (10/4/2020) Posted in: stories - Spanning the years 1963–1966, Typomundus 20 was an international travelling exhibition of juried typographic design works that sought to represent a collected world of typography as art. Typomundus drew approximately 12,000 submissions from countries all over the world… ... Read More
The Golden Palm-Tree for Advertising (9/27/2020) Posted in: stories, videos - "Italy's few commercial artists are self-instructed. The absence of a strong tradition and the lack of specialised schools explain the need for foreign contacts, already severely tested by the long years of isolation, when the production of the… ... Read More
The quite strange story of the best logo ever (9/20/2020) Posted in: stories, videos - 2014 marked its 50th anniversary: We all know it well. Woolmark logo - applied to more than five billion items worldwide - is frequently credited for being a concise and powerful symbol to the point that, in 2011,… ... Read More
Logotypes (9/13/2020) Posted in: stories - This text has been taken from the Italian version published in Franco Grignani – pitture, sperimentali, grafica – Ricerca come arte, exhibition catalogue, Rondòttanta Centro culturale, Sesto San Giovanni, 1979; the same article was also published again on… ... Read More
The strange story of the Piaggio logo contest (9/6/2020) Posted in: stories - The Piaggio & C. Company of Genoa was founded by Rinaldo Piaggio in 1884, initially producing locomotives and railway carriages. Towards the end of the First World War, it turned to the military sector and later progressed to… ... Read More
Dompé (8/30/2020) Posted in: stories - "The years since the war have seen a tremendous growth in the field of medicine. This has become the golden era of antibiotics and metabolic agents, the fulfilment of the dreams of Ehrlich and Pasteur. As the industry… ... Read More
A&L (8/23/2020) Posted in: stories - Alfieri & Lacroix (to be pronounced as 'Lah-crwàh') is something of a protagonist in the history of the Italian graphic industry. Founded in Milan in 1896 by Edoardo Lacroix and Emilio Alfieri, Alfieri & Lacroix was a major… ... Read More
Sci-Fi for Penguin Books (8/16/2020) Posted in: stories - In 1968, in order to address the economic crisis within the publishing house, Penguin Books hired David Pelham as the new art director for fiction. His first move was to commission the covers of sixteen science fiction novels,… ... Read More
The ED Group (8/9/2020) Posted in: stories - The second half of the 1960s coincided in Italy with a period of redefinition of the identity of graphic and industrial design and their role in society. Facing the advance of the American-style 'full service' advertising agencies (as… ... Read More
Forma vs Helvetica (8/2/2020) Posted in: stories - Just about everyone uses fonts in word processing on our computers, but not everyone is aware that behind every single typeface there is a story… Franco Grignani, Pubblicità in Italia, 1965 [1] Franco Grignani, as early as in… ... Read More
Type: a graphic design lesson (7/26/2020) Posted in: exhibits - The poster in the featured pic above (70 x 100 cm format) was commissioned by Franco Grignani for Heinz Waibl (1931-2020) for his 'Comunicazione Sperimentale TYPE' exhibition (30 works) at the Quanta Gallery in Milan in 1984 ('50… ... Read More
Family Portraits (7/19/2020) Posted in: stories - Franco loved inserting his family into some personal greeting cards or works for Alfieri & Lacroix, but with discretion, sometimes in an almost invisible way, as he was used to doing for his signatures on ads. In these… ... Read More
Greetings! (7/12/2020) Posted in: stories - Sending greetings to friends and acquaintances for the New Year has always been an important tradition for Franco, who believed in personal messages to truly connect as a reaction again the impersonal nature of the vast anonymous mass… ... Read More
Who was Jeanne Grignani? (7/5/2020) Posted in: stories - Jeanne Grignani, born Michot, was 'the great woman behind the great man'. Despite her shyness, she had a strong personality. Jeanne Michot photographed by Franco Grignani (part.) She was born on the first day of spring in 1916… ... Read More
The passion for boxing (6/28/2020) Posted in: stories - Just as an anecdote, Franco was a true boxing fan, to his wife's horror who refrained from watching the matches on TV (preferring by far the figure skating on ice). These ads from 1954 and 1962 reflect his… ... Read More
A visionary classroom dedicated to Franco (6/21/2020) Posted in: edu, videos - In 2019, together with their students, the Professor of Art of Photography and Graphics Advertising Anita Pascale with the collaboration of Professors N. Barone, MR. Napoli, MC. Petroli of ISIS EUROPA in POMIGLIANO D'ARCO (Naples) implemented with their… ... Read More
How to make the Woolmark logo using Abobe Illustrator® (6/14/2020) Posted in: tips & tricks, videos - More and more young people, designers or simple design enthusiasts, are interested in the works of Franco Grignani. In this video by Emanuele Abrate (ITA) you can learn how to recreate his famous Woolmark logo of 1963. It… ... Read More
How to make the Galleria Peccolo logo using Abobe Illustrator® (6/7/2020) Posted in: tips & tricks, videos - We have already illustrated how to recreate the Woolmark logo with Abobe Illustrator®; in this video tutorial by Caio Pires, we learn how to reproduce the logo that Franco Grignani created for the Peccolo Gallery in 1971, where… ... Read More
A lab in the School of Design of the Polytechnic in Milan (5/31/2020) Posted in: books, edu - Since 2014, the students from the first year of the School of Design of the Polytechnic in Milan (Scuola di Design Politecnico di Milano) have been involved in the editing of a series dedicated to communication designers of… ... Read More
A student’s flip-book… (5/24/2020) Posted in: books, edu - Franco Grignani’s works are still relevant and influential, which is evident in the number of young students attracted to his work. A student from the University Institute of Architecture in Venice (IUAV) published this work in 2007, and… ... Read More
Two exhibition catalogues in flip-book (5/17/2020) Posted in: books, exhibits - Two beautiful catalogues of recent exhibitions in Milan to flip on Issuu, with texts also in English. Franco Grignani: Il Rigore dell'Ambiguità - 10 A.M. Art, Milan - 23/01 - 2/04/2016 Franco Grignani: Subperception - 10 A.M. Art,… ... Read More
Polisensorialità: an open-air exhibit (5/10/2020) Posted in: exhibits, videos - An anthological exhibition (2019) at m.a.x. Museum in Chiasso, with a preview of greatly evocative graphic elements in the public square. [featured pic from SUPER-FROM, courtesy of Federica Delprino & Omar Tonella] ... Read More
A London exhibit to flip through (5/3/2020) Posted in: exhibits - Franco Grignani – M&L Fine Art, London – 01/06 – 27/07/2017, with an introduction by Serge Lemoine, former President of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. [featured pic from Il Post & M&L FINE ART, courtesy of Matteo Lampertico] ... Read MoreLast Updated on 24/04/2021 by Emiliano