By Gaia Giordani. Cover double spread of “This is Me and Only Me” book by Giorgia Lupi and Maddalena Garner (Ed. Corraini).
Summer is the perfect time to nourish your imagination. It’s the ideal season to discover books that not only entertain but also expand your mind and enhance your creativity. This carefully curated list of unconventional books and magazines by internationally renowned Italian designers and artists is designed to inspire, inform, and ignite your passion for the arts. Discover how these masterpieces can help you grow, learn, and see the world in new, vibrant ways.
We bet these 8 summer books will spark your creativity
How to master the power of colour: a visual adventure
Riccardo Falcinelli is a superstar of graphic and editorial design, as well as an expert of Art history. His bestselling book “Chromorama. How Colour Changed Our Way of Seeing” (2022), translated into many languages worldwide, is an essential read for anyone passionate about visual arts. The book explores how colour has shaped our world, taking readers on a visual adventure into the culture and psychology of colour, its symbolism and meaning in different cultures and art forms.
If you can read in Italian (or translate it with Google Lenses), check out “Guardare Pensare Progettare. Neuroscienze per il design” (2023), an enlightening essay about the neuroscience of design. Also, keep an eye out for the upcoming book “Visus” (meaning face in Latin) next autumn, with many stories about the human visage in art and photography, from ancient times to the selfie era.
Summer books to enhance your observation skills with data visualisation
Data visualisation is an art and a science that combines data analysis with an eye for composition, colour and pattern design. “OBSERVE, COLLECT, DRAW! – A Visual Journal for obsessive and curious minds” (2018) by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec is the perfect book to harness your observational skills.
Follow Giorgia Lupi to discover more about her work: she was recognised by Wallpaper magazine as one of 400 creative individuals in the US this summer. She is a prominent dataviz expert globally and has designed patterns for textiles in her career. Notably, her famous work “Dear Dara” has been acquired by MoMa.
She recently published a new book with Maddalena Garner, “This is Me and Only Me” (2004), a picture book for children (and adults!) that shows how everything we observe about the world around us can teach us something about who we are inside.
Enjoy the sunset and chill out: this how summer books support your happyness
“Sunset and dawn are the back and front of the same phenomenon: when we are looking at the sunset, the people over there are looking at the dawn”, said designer Bruno Munari, commenting on one of his many masterpiece books, “Drawing the sun” (1980).
This book is part of Bruno Munari’s Workshop series, which teaches readers about different drawing techniques that can inspire and fuel creativity. If you enjoyed this book, you may also be interested in “Drawing a tree”.
Munari’s creative activity is astonishing and varied, encompassing painting, sculpture, design, and photography, among others. He never lost touch with his inner child, nurturing a curious and unbiased approach to art and design, which is reflected in his eclectic work. If you get the chance, visit Spazio Munari in Milan; it’s a place where you can explore, listen and be amazed, curated by Munari’s long-time publisher, Corraini Edizioni.
Dive deep into the epitome of beauty
In the early Eighties, Italian art collector and bibliophile Franco Maria Ricci launched FMR magazine, which Jacqueline Kennedy described as “the most beautiful magazine in the world”. It was an instant success, printed in five editions in many languages, and admired in every corner of the globe by an elite readership from 1982 to 2004, when it was discontinued. After many years of absence, the magazine was relaunched in 2021.
The latest issue Numero Dieci – Solstizio d’Estate 2024 (Number 10 – Summer Solstice 2024) will delight you with 128 pages of wonders, from Medieval ivory to colourful piggy banks and from autarchic materials to indigo colour.
In Parma, you can visit the largest bamboo labyrinth in existence, founded by Franco Maria Ricci himself as a homage to his friend, the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. Borges was obsessed with the concept of a labyrinth, which is a metaphor for uncertainty and enigmas.
