Modern Graphic Design in Italy is a lecture that was given to the students of the School of Visual Arts (SVA) of New York, on invitation of Professor Greg D’Onofrio, a teacher of Graphic Design History and an internationally known graphic design scholar.

The lecture starts in the 1930s—in particular 1933 was a crucial year in the history of Italian modern graphic design—showing the evolution form Rationalism to Modernism by illustrating the work of some of the most renowned graphic designers who lived and worked in Italy at that time.

Also, a focus has been dedicated to the three pioneers of Italian graphic design—Albe Steiner, Franco Grignani and Max Huber—who contributed to the definition of the profession of the modern graphic designer during the post-war period.

While the final section has been dedicated to Unimark International, the modern graphic design firm par excellence, who contributed to the development of the modern graphic design vocabulary and to its international and long-lasting success.

A multi-layered grid has been designed in order to arrange the layout of the lecture—a solution that proved to be particularly effective and was used again for subsequent lectures given to the SVA.

Students welcomed the lecture with great enthusiasm and an interesting debate followed the presentation.

—Nicola-Matteo Munari