Memories of Italian Graphic Design History. Digital Dissemination and Immaterial Circulation of Visual Communication Heritage

Posters, brochures, advertisements, catalogs, and magazines constitute a fascinating cultural heritage to retrace the history of Italian graphic design. From the 1930s to the 1970s, graphic design enriched Italian communication with a revolutionary visual language. Various societies, foundations, associations, and public or private archives preserve graphic materials today. The result is the difficulty in creating a single place to preserve graphic design projects physically. This condition also reflects the digital archiving process of graphic materials. The absence of official digital conversion has facilitated the emergence of independent entities that make graphic artifacts accessible online. Sometimes online dissemination does not provide historical sources, and it is not primary digitisation. The contribution analyses the online diffusion and immaterial circulation of graphic artifacts. The research presents some emblematic cases to define original and no-original archiving processes. Archivio Storico del Progetto Grafico by Centro di Documentazione sul Progetto Grafico (CDPG), the digitalisation of magazines like Campo Grafico and Stile Industria, or independent projects such as Archivio della Grafica Italiana, are only some examples. The purpose is to identify critical and strong points of these archives and digital platforms, imagining a new digital archive for the Italian graphic design heritage.