Fondazione and ISIA Urbino: a typographic project to tell the story of the city

In recent days, the Fedrigoni Fabriano Foundation welcomed to Fabriano a group of students from ISIA Urbino—one of Italy’s most prestigious higher education institutes in the fields of design, graphics, visual communication, and publishing—led by graphic designer and professor Silvana Amato, to launch a research and teaching project within the course Typography for Illustration.

The students strolled through the streets of the city and visited paper mills, archives, museums, and symbolic places of Fabriano, photographing buildings, plaques, signs, and notices, and collecting lettering and writing displayed in the urban fabric: the historic Paper Mills, headquarters of the Foundation; the Hand-made paper production Department of the Fabriano Paper Mill; the Watermark Laboratory of Carifac’Arte within Zona Conce; the Paper and Watermark Museum; the museum "La civiltà della scrittura"; the Gentile Theater; the Oratory of Charity; as well as the municipal archive and library, thanks to the collaboration of the Municipality of Fabriano, which on this occasion granted access to valuable documents and volumes.

From this research phase will emerge a typographic map of Fabriano, collectively created by transforming photographs and collected materials into line drawings. The project includes screen printing on Fabriano Paper and will be developed into various artifacts, to reflect the city’s typographic richness and its historic artisanal vocation.