MONOGRAMMI E FIGURE

TEORIE E STORIE DELLA PROGETTAZIONE DI ARTEFATTI COMUNICATIVI

Abstract

In a journal that calls for renewal in the field of graphic design, reviewing a book approaching its forty-fifth anniversary may appear a somewhat audacious gesture. Nonetheless, Monogrammi e figure. Teorie e storie della progettazione di artefatti comunicativi by Giovanni Anceschi, published in 1981 by La Casa Usher in Florence, continues to offer theoretical propositions from which such a need for renewal may meaningfully arise ". The contribution this re-reading may offer to the discipline is articulated primarily in two key areas: the question of method, namely how to theorize within the domain of graphic design, where Anceschi identifies taxonomy as the fundamental device; and the question of what, which involves defining the object of study and intervention proper to the profession. This is articulated through the dichotomy between the communicative artifact and graphic systems, as well as the relationship between the configuration of the product and that of the message it 'hosts' in its graphic component.