Véronique Vienne interviews Omar Vulpinari
for Design>Education magazine, Johannesburg
N.3 February 2011, published online
www.issuu.com

Re-published on Icograda EduNews 7/11 July 26, 2011
published online
www.icograda.org

Fabrica: Ten Questions for Omar Vulpinari


Serving humanity and art in roughly equal doses

A new generation of dreamers is coming of age, young people who believe that humanist convictions can shape their future. Omar Vulpinari is among a handful of adults who actively supports their aspirations and efforts. As head of Visual Communication at Fabrica, the Benetton Group’s communication research centre, Vulpinari is helping them become the kind of design communicators who will make a difference. 

The work atmosphere at Fabrica is unique — some have compared this intercultural campus to the Bauhaus. Fabrica’s studio consists exclusively of young designers from all over the world who develop campaigns for clients with a social agenda. The Japanese architect Tadao Ando has transformed an old Palladian villa into one of the most remarkable contemporary landmarks which has become home to Fabrica. The place, and the people working on the premises, expresses, in 21st century language, the values elaborated by architects like Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe — values that the late architectural critic Peter Blake had described as “serving humanity and art in roughly equal doses". 

In a recent interview, Omar Vulpinari explained how he tries to create memorable and artful campaigns that address the most pressing social issues.


VV. Fabrica is located less than 30 minutes from Venice. Every two years, at the Venice Biennale, the most provocative contemporary artists worldwide exhibit their most recent projects. It’s such a stimulating environment, isn’t it?

OV. Fabrica is definitely in a very fortunate cultural and geographical position. It is located just north of Treviso so by car it’s 30 minutes from the culture capitals of Venice and Padua, 40 from Cortina (the heart of the Dolomite Mountains), and another 40 from Iesolo, the most popular beach-culture coast of the Adriatic Sea. This position makes the Fabrica experience very appealing not only for young international art and design residents that stay at Fabrica for 12 months but also for visiting design educators, entrepreneurs, promoters, and writers. In fact very many prominent artists and designers passing through the region frequently stop at Fabrica for casual visits, lectures and workshops, making the institute a very special and dynamic “think-hub” in a global network of design-led innovation.


VV. Your visual vocabulary is direct, bold, often unnerving (your Global Violence Prevention campaign or your anti-smoking ads, for instance). You don’t seem to be afraid of controversy. Is getting people upset about issues a Benetton tradition?

OV. Truth sets you free, but can also hurt. Our images are about universal realities that need to be communicated and addressed, but in a universal-audience context this can mean displacing someone. Very often our images are direct, and for this reason disturbing, but this is not a stylistic/self-marketing choice. International research efforts in social communication have demonstrated that when behavior change is required through visual communication, the message and its language must be direct and emotionally impacting to be memorable and therefore effective. For example, countries that adopt those disturbing but realistic photographic images of smoke-related diseases on cigarette packs have on average an immediate drop of 20% in tobacco consumption.


VV. Your residents (as Fabrica’s grant-holders are called) are young communication and product designers, video makers, photographers, and interaction designers, most of them under 25. And they stay with you for a year or two, maximum. Plus they come from around the world. Yet your centre creates socially aware campaigns that are surprisingly consistent in terms of message and image. What’s your secret?

OV. First of all it’s natural for any environment doing distinctive work like Fabrica to attract people that are aligned with that nature of work. We are mostly known for our communication design for social concern through our global campaigns for United Nations and for 19 years of publishing Colors - The Magazine About the Rest of the World. Second, our selection process is very sensitive towards sincere care for design as a social agent of change. This also means looking for candidates who have strong image-based communication skills that can transcend perennial language barriers and have a more direct impact in a global multi-lingual context. Third, my being at Fabrica for 13 years now has probably also helped a lot in maintaining consistency of message and image.


VV. Massive change will not happen with old ideas. You are a pioneer in what you call “lateral thinking.” What makes this approach really different?

OV. ‘Lateral thinking ideas’ first need ‘Lateral thinking funding’. Unfortunately very few governments have effective research funding policies. Italy is definitely not one of them as our university research funds are almost the lowest in Europe, and still falling. Essentially, lateral thinking is about thinking without (or with less) fear of failure. Advancement and creative solutions cannot come from environments that cannot take risks of failing. In the end, the privilege of being able to afford failure first of all requires illuminated governors/entrepreneurs/patrons and their support.


VV. Is providing students with real-life clients and real-life challenges one of the new possibilities you see for people who teach communication design? Is it what ‘practice research’ is all about?

OV. It’s not a new possibility but it’s an increasingly relevant one. In a world and market of growing multi-player complexity the designer cannot avoid collaborating closely with the end-user, the client and numerous other stakeholders and professionals in different disciplines (scientists, programmers, business consultants, and more). Therefore the designer’s project-based training cannot any longer be focused on the slow-track classroom-simulation basis. Practice research must take the students into the clients’ meeting rooms and to the streets of public service. This will not only turn out as a real benefit for the student but also for the market and the community.


VV. Are you foreseeing social networking as a way to promote long-term environmental and humanitarian responsibility? What we learnt from the Obama campaign is that the internet can trigger change — but how do you sustain a new vision over time?

OV. Certainly. I think that social networking is an extraordinary vehicle for long-term social change and will become more so when issues like China’s government censorship and Africa’s lack of adequate infrastructure are resolved. But because we are in the realm of social networking it’s more a question of ‘who’ will determine the long-term vision. Here is where I see the great importance of the hundreds of thousands of design students we have globally today. If all these future designers embrace the enormous social responsibility they have from day one of their careers, and take advantage of the communication potential of social networking, they will absolutely be able to make a very important contribution to sustaining and spreading a new vision over time. This is my most important mission with residents in Fabrica and also my students at the IUAV University of Venice in San Marino.


VV. I have a bone to pick with you: I don’t believe that ‘expanded media’, which is central at Fabrica, is really going to transform the way we think and behave. I would compare the blending of all disciplines to the Tower of Babel, not to the invention of the printing press. Can you convince me that the world is a better place because I can take photographs with my iPhone?

OV. If anyone can effectively, easily and economically document images, texts and sound any and every instant of their life, anywhere they are, I’m sure the world can be a better place in many aspects. Just think of the citizen journalist phenomenon. Today we have more uncensored information shaping our reality, coming from off-the-street people with phone cameras and blogs than from professional journalists. Another example is the e-reader that is already giving us the possibility of having thousands of e-books in our pocket wherever and whenever we want them. Personally, and I’m not alone, this is definitely comparable to the invention of the printing press. 


VV. You are probably better informed than most regarding the numerous problems and conflicts afflicting people around the globe these days. In your opinion, what is the most pressing social issue in 2010?

OV. No doubt that global warming is always at the top of the list. The UNWHO has global warming effects on human health as its current priority, because the Earth will regenerate in time but humanity could be in front of the so-called ‘sixth extinction’ of life on the planet.


VV. You are vice-president of Icograda, the global body for communication design. What specific impact do you having on its philosophy, strategy and programmes?

OV. Currently I’m leading two major projects: the Icograda Design Education Manifesto 2011 and Iridescent – The Icograda Journal of Design Research. The Icograda Design Education Manifesto 2011 is a core document that defines Icograda's position on design education, taking into consideration the emerging themes of technology, inter-disciplinarity, cross-disciplinarity, design research, entrepreneurship, design management and design thinking. Iridescent offers an international peer-reviewed publishing platform for innovative research with a specific focus on issues of relevance to contemporary communication design and curriculum development.


VV. You told me once that you are not interested in “design for designers” but that you’d rather champion “ideas for people”. I want to make sure that I get what you mean. Are you saying that too often designers try to please themselves rather than have a real impact on their audience?

OV. Some young designers are to often influenced by ‘designer cool’, and by what other designers can think of their work – often featured out of context on their personal websites. In the name of peer-related approval I see too much work that is not focusing on the essentials of the message required by the client and the user. This can happen not only because of ego-centered agendas, but also because it’s very easy to be creative and cool with what is not essential, and very hard to be creative and cool with only the essential. I myself have not been alien to this attitude in the early stages of my career. My experience makes me think it’s part of the common personal evolution that all designers deal with sooner or later.

Bianca Zen interviews Omar Vulpinari
for Taxi Design Network, Singapore
during Icograda Design Week Seattle 9-15 July 2006
published online
www.designtaxi.com


Interview with Omar Vulpinari


BZ. What is the most fundamental principle in Visual Communication, which you abide to in your creative output throughout all these years? 

OV. I see communication as a mirror, for the designer and also for the viewer, where both parts can reflect themselves and hopefully even discover something new or unknown.I prefer provocative images that by many could be considered shocking and gratuitous, but to me they're the answer to a need to communicate through essential human issues and values. Images that speak a symbolic, universal and unmistakable language, that need no explanation. These "mirrors" are visual archetypes that disturb us and force us to understand our society and ourselves. Only images that disrupt and displace can push the reader to a decisive behavior change. I care about visual narratives that punch in the eye and explode in the mind. If it's not a knockout punch it has to be an orgasmic caress. And true stories when possible, because truth is what people want to take home in the evening.


BZ. On 29 September 2005, your lecture is titled as, "I want to see a face melting portfolio" at Teach Me 2005. How detailed do you think should a portfolio be and what is it, in your opinion, which makes a good portfolio that is able to leave a mind blowing impression?

OV. I was inspired for the title of that lecture by Jack Black in the movie "School of Rock". When his rock band of junior high students needs encouragement for their first gig, Black roars out at them "don't worry... JUST GO OUT THERE AND MEEEEEEEEELT FACEEEEEEEEES!". By this I mean that a portfolio has to immediately hit the viewer with the force of an atomic bomb. Why? Because it has to leave an impression as big as a moon crater. Starting from the first glance it has to astonish, without shocking gratuitously of course. It has to be a tsunami of creativity and appropriateness. Whether its direct and provoking, poetic and delicate, social or personal, it has to have the attraction power of sex! I see a lot of portfolios, so this is what... I'd hope. Of course a successful portfolio has to be based on good work and references but this initial "battering ram" effect is crucial. It's where a portfolio gets actually examined or immediately dropped in the "portfolio pick up bin" at the office entrance. Why? Because people who regularly view a lot of portfolios often: - don't dedicate to each portfolio more than 15 seconds unless something surprising hits them - don't give the designer the possibility to present directly - don't bother with CVs or recommendation letters if they don't first "see" anything special To directly answer the question I can mention a few that impressed me recently: a Swiss designer arriving at Fabrica dressed as a Swiss mailman, riding a Swiss mail bicycle, and delivering a giant postcard (1.5x1m) from Switzerland which was his portfolio; from a Brazilian student I received a wax cast of his entire head, containing his work. An Italian designer sent me, along with the work, her collection of illustrated thongs.


BZ. Is there a specific message that you look forward to share over your presentation at Icograda Design Week in Seattle? 

OV. In recent years many western design schools have boomed in opening new branches and offering their programs, and teachers to developing countries worldwide. Many American and European Universities license and franchise their degrees to public and private design schools in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Many Far East schools are more eager to employ western design teachers and methods. I find this beneficial on one hand because the students aren't forced any longer to leave their countries for a better education, which means that important human and economical resources will remain where they are probably more needed instead of ending up in the designer crowded western capitals. But most important, the native graduates will also become the future educators of their own country. On the other hand, in this context we see too many young designers from cultures with strong native identities losing their heritages in favor of western aesthetics and topics. This cultural crisis is extremely dangerous but not necessarily definite. Japan resolved it in the 70s when western and eastern design cultures merged. China, Korea, India and the Middle Eastern countries should hopefully get over it soon. Unfortunately balanced globalization at the moment only regards markets and not cultures. Education more than other areas, should be about growth through harmonic human exchanging and sharing. We need to be "people" identifying ourselves through relations with other "people", we all need to be loved and considered. Exchanging our cultural differences is vital to our freedom and self-actualization. So, to have something to exchange we must cherish and cultivate our differences. For this reason school systems worldwide will have to do their best to treasure regional cultures and to evolve them in the respect of their native roots and through the understanding and combination with all brother cultures. And what about the students and teachers? Because of the booming capitalistic growth of developing countries and consequential need for communication and design, we are witnessing the design student population raising to the most numerous student categories on the planet. Universities in China alone produce 70.000 designers each year. This gives teachers an even greater responsibility than in the past. Because of the speed of change today in the design education programs, teachers will have to adopt new forms of relationship with their students. Dialog and mutual learning will become a central concept. An interesting expression of this need to exchange on a more balanced ground is the "Teach Me" conference project organized in the past two years by the IUAV University of Venice. During a three-day get together teachers and students from around the world share roles, work together, play together and teach each other through experimental procedures. If this massive force properly embraces its immense media power and social responsibilities, design schools could become extraordinary fulcrums of a so desperately needed global change.

 

Distinctive Opportunities
Essay by Omar Vulpinari
for The Education of a Graphic Designer, second edition
edited by Steven Heller
published by Allworth Press, New York 2005


Until a few years ago Master and PHD studies were the domain of institutions with exclusively educational missions. Students and industry were respectful of their authority to certify the highest academic status and confer superior career potential. But the design profession and its educational needs have changed. Today’s information society is dominated by speed and diversity. Production has moved from material to post-material goods like ideas, images, services, experiences and relationships. A society where globalized economy, information technology and communication democracy have dramatically multiplied need and possibility. The current educational system cannot depend only on material production age methods based on centralized military-style models still widely in use.

How is advanced education in communication and design evolving in this scenario? The buzzword may be “alternative opportunities”.

Since 1998 I have headed the Visual Communication Department at Fabrica, the Benetton Research and Development Center for Communication in Treviso, Italy. Fabrica is a unique hybrid environment of learning, experimentation and commercial practice sponsored by the Benetton Group. From its opening in 1994 by Luciano Benetton and Oliviero Toscani, systematic networking has been one of its most successful philosophies, making the institution today the central node of an advanced international network of students, teachers, artists, 2D/3D and interactive designers, photographers, musicians, publishers, writers, filmmakers and critics.

I guide a group of selected international student/experimenters that receive a full-expense-paid one-year grant. They benefit from learning by doing on world-class projects and workshops, extensive media exposure of their work and numerous privileged connections. Benetton benefits from the public attention, the extraordinary relations generated from this unique global “think-net” and the innovative spirit that the center spreads out to the rest of the company.

And here is were the future is going: Like Fabrica, design education in the future will be seeded with more alternative education opportunities that will resemble corporate R&D departments focused on present and future social-economical realities. Students will learn by doing. They will acquire knowledge from their successes and mistakes on real market assignments. The curricula will be based on finalized projects, short full-immersion workshops and lectures, and interdisciplinary speculation. Classes will become fast-paced adaptable small task forces. Projects and project leaders will bubble up spontaneously and prosper or fail depending on team interest. Study platforms will be fluidly influenced by partnerships from corporate and governmental partners. The “open source” software development mode based on idea democracy, peer to peer recognition and horizontal hierarchy will prevail. Attention will be given to ecology-oriented studies, where the efforts will address the social and environmental survival emergency.

Bruce Sterling argues in his recent book “Tomorrow Now*,” “Unfortunately, this speculative situation is not scholarship. Intellectually speaking, it means treading water. When you have no established canon of cultural classics, you have no place to take a permanent intellectual stand. You have no scholastic mastery, you merely have clever acts of opportunistic contingency. These losses are serious.”

This is true when speaking about basic, undergraduate education. But at the post-graduate level these methods have already widely proved to be successful especially when the objective remains preparing students for the speed and change driven world mentioned before. Learning to learn constantly and faster along with broadening one’s network of relations and resources becomes fundamental.

These so-called school/shop models are also important “cushion” areas between the realms of study and practice, that are much more distant than in the past. They allow young designers to express their most personal creativity and the potential of their still uncontaminated instinct while making important learning and discovery errors on real commissions. This can happen because the assignments come spontaneously from daring client/partners that need and expect unconditioned experimentation, innovating surprises and constructive not-asked-for solutions.

These new educational opportunities, like Fabrica, will not substitute mass conventional studies but will act as influential “boosters” and offer a vital trickle-down effect of what good they have to offer. Their private nature of support will nurture risk-taking explorations that the academic world will also benefit from. And certainly they will offer “distinctive” learning experiences for a society where “new and different” are priority assets to all.

*Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next 50 Years by Bruce Sterling, Random House, 2002

Steven Heller interviews Omar Vulpinari
for Becoming a Graphic Designer, third edition
edited by Steven Heller and Teresa Fernandes
published by Wiley, New York 2005


Fabrica: A Humanistic Laboratory


SH. What is the goal of a Fabrica fellowship?

OV. Fabrica is communication and society. Fabrica is risk and utopia. Most of all it’s unique. Its a school with world class teachers but no exams and degrees, its a professional creative consultancy where clients accept research and error as part of the process. It’s a place where a musician can design a toilette lamp for Alessi and a graphic designer can shoot a movie and get it in the Venice Film Festival. I would define Fabrica a humanistic laboratory that researches on new forms of communication through contemporary media. For the fifty international students receiving a twelve-month scholarship it’s an extraordinary opportunity to grow on unconventional interdisciplinary experiences in a multiethnic environment.
Students learn by working on concrete communication projects with the supervision of an international team of professionals and a training program of visiting teachers that come to Fabrica to hold workshops and lectures.
The people we attract are already very talented and well prepared. Our students almost always have a BA, and many also have work experience. Fabrica doesn’t promise to train, but it guarantees extraordinary opportunities. The program is based on three parallel activities: workshops and lectures, finalised assignments, personal research projects.


SH. What do you expect from potential students and what determines who is accepted?

OV. First we review the candidate’s portfolio. If this is appropriate the candidate is invited for a two-week trial. If this goes successfully we offer a twelve-month grant. What do I expect after? I expect they have dreams for society not design for designers. People who can tell stories through any media. Lateral thinkers that communicate to collective intelligence. I expect they have the courage and unconsciousness to make mistakes exploring their unknown and the intelligence to build on this. They know the rules, I want to see if they can break them in a meaningful way. This is the greatest privilege that Fabrica can offer, the luxury to commit errors in a real market process. I expect they be open to comment and anxious to understand the mysterious paths of creativity. They must be generous enough to give constructive critique and praise to others. They must be able to articulate a debate around their work. I love going to critique meetings with a perspective to share and after, leaving with new and even totally opposite beliefs. I expect they move quickly and lightly from one task to another and back, because the more there is to do, the more gets done. And quality gains also, because a wrong idea for a certain project may be the right one for another.


SH. How do students participate in the Fabrica community?

OV. Multidisciplinary work is implemented and each department ensures the specific qualities. So if a writer develops a great idea for a chair, a 3D designer will integrate the design, someone from Visual and Photography will take care of the communication, etc.
Learning by doing is the approach. It can be individually, in small department teams, in a broad interdisciplinary group mode and even with external partners and resources. Students have the daily and direct guidance of the department heads. Teams and degrees of responsibility are defined by the project and the people.


SH. Do you integrate other media in your graphic design program, and to what effect?

OV. I’m definitely not a software freak. I prefer searching for inspiration in the change of relation between media and society. For example, for some perverted reason of human evolution called consumerism, today everything has to be quick and cheap and information is no exception. Content buying seems to be a more popular activity than content development, which is what I strive for daily.
Another interesting issue is the data sphere we live in. While we’re in a meeting, we can read and send our e-mail, type an SMS, talk with someone through a satellite on a TV screen and answer the video cell phone, almost all at the same time. These new relations between media and man can inspire a simple visual essay but also a major multi-sensorial interactive exhibition.


SH. Students attend for a year. Is this enough time to impart the necessary ethics and ethos you want them to absorb?

OV. At Fabrica we have the great privilege to work daily with human values, the most noble of materials. Dedicating to social issues and trying to stir up things is also a way of simply giving back for this privilege.
The most important contribution of Fabrica is in its model. A formula where everybody wins. Benetton benefits in innovation and public respect. The young people who come here learn and grow immensely from meeting the world’s greatest communicators and from working in freedom on world-class projects.
One thing can be said for sure, that Fabrica is unique. I truly hope it won’t be for long.

Giorgio Camuffo intervista Omar Vulpinari
per Please Teach Me
curato da Giorgio Camuffo
pubblicato da IUAV Università di Venezia
Venezia 2005


GC. Cos’è stato Teach Me 2004?

OV. Mi ha ricordato la definizione di scuola ideale di Lou Danziger, “ottimi studenti in compagnia di ottimi insegnanti”.

Teach Me è stato una combinazione d’informazione, ispirazione, interdisciplinarietà e networking, realizzata in armonia da chi insegna e chi impara senza barriere e formalità.
Sono stato impressionato soprattutto dal fatto che uno staff organizzativo di circa 20 studenti e un piccolo gruppo di docenti abbiano dato vita ad un così ricco e costruttivo sistema di cultura e socializzazione certamente raro per l’Italia. Poi ho apprezzato la stimolante diversità dei conferenzieri che andava da collettivi di giovanissimi graffitisti fino ai presidenti delle associazioni nazionali e internazionali, passando per una selezione di alto livello di professionisti, sperimentatori, studenti e insegnanti.
Davvero originale l’idea delle “botteghe dei maestri” dove ogni insegnate aveva uno spazio a disposizione per fare una mostra, un workshop o semplicemente chiacchierare con chiunque lo volesse. Questo ha creato un’atmosfera di rilassata intimità che ha prodotto una continua e vivissima compartecipazione lungo tutto l’arco delle tre giornate e ben oltre come questo libro dimostra.


GC. Che cosa vuol dire insegnare?

OV. Insegnare non significa “riempire” una mente vuota, significa “aprirla” affinché posso far uscire la ricchezza che già contiene e posso far entrare le ricchezze che gli mancano.

Il primo obbiettivo che un insegnate deve raggiungere è fare in modo che lo studente s’innamori del tema del compito. Fatto questo lo studente sentirà che sta lavorando per sé non per il voto, l’insegnate o il cliente.
L’attività più importante e creativa dell’insegnate sta proprio nella preparazione e presentazione del tema dell’esercizio. Se questo si insinua nelle passioni dello studente il gioco è fatto. I risultati finali dipendono principalmente dalla bontà di questa inseminazione.

Insegnare significa anche essere un capo famiglia. Certe situazioni richiedono una gestione patriarcale fatta di ordini indiscutibili, critiche e sanzioni. Altre situazioni richiedono una gestione matriarcale fatta di condivisione dei compiti e delle scelte, ascolto e dialogo.


GC. Cosa chiedono gli studenti oggi?

OV. Oggi come ieri vedo gli studenti configurarsi tra le infinite varianti di due estremi.
Da una parte abbiamo quelli “al servizio del mondo” che chiedono di essere socialmente responsabili. Localmente o globalmente non fa differenza ma vogliono che le loro idee e la loro professionalità siano utili a una causa. Sanno che l’umanità è in grave pericolo e che come comunicatori hanno il potenziale per influenzare cambiamenti di miglioramento radicali.
Dall’altra parte ci sono invece quelli “al servizio di se stessi” che sono sopratutto interessati ad esprimere la propria aura interna con visioni personali e ricerche formali.
In ogni modo il concetto di “mestiere” è oggi secondario perché prevale quello eroico di “missione”.

Gli studenti d’oggi dovrebbero chiedere di imparare a gestire la complessità dell’era dell’informazione. Una società di questo tipo ha come valori primari la velocità e il cambiamento. Tali fattori faranno sì che il mercato del lavoro che si troveranno alla fine degli studi non sarà quello per cui si sono preparati.

E che fine ha fatto quella nobile “cultura del progetto” che tanto avevano chiesto le generazioni precedenti? Spazzata via dalle economie del just-on-time che non concedono più il tempo per una progettualità “thought through” ovvero, pensata a fondo. Al suo posto abbiamo però la “Cultura della libertà d’informazione e della visibilità” offerta da Google.


GC. Come studente che professore vorresti?

OV. Vorrei una guida iniziatica come il Don Juan di Casteneda, in grado di farmi trovare il mio centro, non il suo, nello straordinario universo della creatività.
Nelle nostre relazioni e nel nostro lavoro è molto importante far emergere la nostra essenza individuale. Sono molto felice quando posso sentire la mia natura “dentro” ciò che produco. In questa prospettiva anche il lavoro più apparentemente vacuo e distante diventa una meravigliosa scoperta di se stessi, degli altri e del mondo.
Adesso mi è facile trovarmi “dentro”, ma non è sempre stato così. Ci vuole un’irrefrenabile curiosità intellettuale, un’intensa esperienza pratica e molta sensibilità emotiva per capire come la propria natura individuale può essere pilota e propulsore della propria creatività. I giovani, come voi che state leggendo, spesso si frustrano per trovare precocemente la “propria” via e pensano che la strada per la gratificazione sia principalmente una questione di definizione di stile personale.
L’aspetto formale è importante effettivamente, è la prima cosa che da un’identità al nostro lavoro, e senza dubbio è il primo specchio di ciò che siamo in profondità.
Ma per concretizzare pienamente la propria natura nel lavoro, e in ogni altra cosa che facciamo, non si deve avere fretta. Bisogna fare, fare e fare senza paura di sbagliare. E così, un po' alla volta, ci si riconosce in un libro, poi in un film, in una poesia, in qualcuno che tiene un seminario, infine in una filosofia d’impaginazione tipografica.

Tutti gli insegnanti sanno insegnare dai successi. È facile, perché gli studenti ci adorano per questo. Odiano ed evitano quelli invece che li mettono di fronte ai propri errori. Vorrei quindi qualcuno che mi facesse crescere anche dalle mie debolezze, ma con spiegazioni oggettive che non potrei respingere, perché la realtà non si può non accettare.

Vorrei un maestro in grado di creare un ambiente privo di paura e censura, dove potersi esprimere in totale libertà e senza timore di sbagliare.

E vorrei che fosse per me una connessione ad una rete internazionale di pensiero “evoluzionario” e d’opportunità economiche.


GC. Come professore che studenti vorresti?

OV. Vorrei studenti che desiderano conoscere il mondo in cui vivono e che non hanno paure di sfidarne le convenzioni. Insieme alle riviste di grafica dovrebbero leggere anche quelle di politica, scienza e poesia.
Vorrei uno studente che non mi guardasse con occhi da manga quando gli propongo un compito che non ha mai svolto prima. Uno studente che sia un compagno di gioco e di armi capace di accogliere con entusiasmo un’impresa che lo porterà verso l’ignoto, perché sa che solamente ciò che gli è sconosciuto gli insegnerà qualcosa di nuovo.

Vorrei uno studente-vampiro, ma non il vampiro materialista che si porta a casa la carta e i colori e nemmeno il vampiro colto che ruba i libri della biblioteca e naviga in rete ossessivamente. Vorrei il vampiro intelligente, quello che vampirizza il maestro, perché sa riconoscere la fonte più ricca di nutrimento e d’opportunità per il suo futuro. Questo studente ha capito l’importanza delle relazioni umane.


GC. Insegnanti che per te sono di riferimento.

OV. Oliviero Toscani mi ha insegnato tantissimo nei quattro anni che ho lavorato con lui a Fabrica, prima che ne lasciasse la direzione. Con lui sono diventato prima un comunicatore socialmente responsabile e poi un grafico. Ma soprattutto mi ha “costretto” a non aver paura di sbagliare. La paura è la morte della creatività.
Anche tu Giorgio sei un riferimento importante per le tue ineguagliabili doti di stimolatore culturale. Nessun altro come te ha portato in Italia, attraverso conferenze, mostre, pubblicazioni e workshop così tanta cultura grafica dal resto del mondo.


GC. Insegnare per esempio?

OV. L’insegnamento è come il leadership, si ottiene per potere o per rispetto. Dare un esempio positivo aiuta ad avere rispetto. Ma questo non è sufficiente nell’insegnamento perché come in ogni altra relazione umana, “noi” dobbiamo avere qualcosa che “loro” vogliono. Questo può essere un buon voto, un sapere, un’ideale. L’insegnante deve continuamente avere qualcosa da dare. Questa è la difficoltà maggiore.


GC. Parlami della complessità dell’insegnamento.

OV. Dobbiamo accettare che le cose veramente importanti non si possono insegnare. Non si può insegnare ad amare, ad essere intelligenti e ad essere talentuosi. Non si può nemmeno insegnare l’eccellenza nella propria materia perché l’eccellenza di per se suppone unicità. Ogni essere dotato ha un valore unico creato dal suo vissuto e dal suo patrimonio genetico che, per ora, non sono trasferibili. Le scuole migliori, infatti, non insegnano l’eccellenza ma hanno insegnanti eccellenti (e famosi) che attirano studenti eccellenti. Queste scuole non possono che sfornare laureati di qualità superiore. Basti pensare agli insegnanti e studenti di fama internazionale della Bauhaus, Ulm e della Royal College of Arts. Siamo ritornati alla formula magica di Lou Danziger, “ottimi studenti in compagnia di ottimi insegnanti”.


GC. Il rapporto della grafica con le altre discipline?

OV. La nostra disciplina ci mette veramente in una posizione privilegiata. Non esiste progetto di comunicazione che non abbia necessità di grafica. Non c’è film, prodotto industriale, musica o interfaccia interattiva che non ne abbiano bisogno. Il graphic designer ha maggiori possibilità di imparare dagli altri e di costruire una ricca rete di contatti.


GC. Come vedi la scuola del futuro?

OV. Non viviamo più nell’era industriale della produzione materiale. Ci troviamo nella società dell’informazione dove ciò che si produce è sempre più immateriale come le idee, le immagini, i servizi, le esperienze e le relazioni. L’attuale sistema educativo deve adeguarsi a questo nuovo fenomeno.
Non può più dipendere totalmente dai modelli formativi basati sui principi militari-religiosi centralizzati dell’era industriale. Questi preparano i giovani ad impieghi non molto diversi da quelli dei propri genitori che probabilmente hanno tenuto quello stesso lavoro per tutta la vita.
Oggi questo non avviene più, così la scuola deve formare i giovani per un mercato che li vuole flessibili, mobili e continuamente aggiornati.
La scuola del futuro offrirà molte opportunità alternative che assomiglieranno ai laboratori di ricerca e sviluppo delle aziende più innovative. Non ci saranno aule ma project-pod. I progetti verranno definiti attorno alle realtà socio-economiche contingenti. Gli studenti impareranno lavorando. Acquisiranno sapere dai loro successi ed errori su commissioni reali. I programmi saranno basati su progetti finalizzati, workshop full-immersion, seminari. Le classi assomiglieranno sempre di più a piccoli task-force multidisciplinari. Progetti e capi progetto fioriranno spontaneamente per prosperare o fallire sulla base dell’interesse comune della squadra. Le piattaforme di studio saranno fluidamente influenzate da partnership con industrie e governo. Come nel mondo del software anche in quello scolastico si diffonderà il modello “open source”, basato sulla democrazia delle idee, il riconoscimento fra pari, e un sistema gerarchico orizzontale. Molta attenzione verrà riservata all’ambiente. L’obbiettivo centrale sarà preparare gli studenti per un mondo veloce e in continuo cambiamento. Imparare ad imparare continuamente, e velocemente sarà l’imperativo insieme all’allargamento del proprio network di relazioni e risorse.
Queste nuove opportunità di formazione non sostituiranno le università ordinarie ma faranno da catalizzatori. Sosterranno le ricerche più puntuali e audaci che al mondo accademico non interessano, ma da cui trarrà beneficio.


GC. Un libro che ti ha aiutato a capire il passato?

OV. Albert Jacquard - Dall’angoscia alla speranza: una lezione di ecologia umana, curato da Luca Gazzaniga e Cristiana Spinedi
pubblicato da I Documenti dell’Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio.


GC. Un libro che ti ha aiutato a capire il futuro?

OV. Tomorrow Now, di Bruce Sterling pubblicato in Italia da Mondadori.


GC. Un libro che ti ha fatto capire te stesso, quello in cui ti sei ritrovato per la prima volta?

OV. Lo Strano Caso del Dr. Jekyll e del Signor Hyde, di Robert Louis Stevenson.