The book begins in 1933 in Milan, traditionally considered to be the birthdate and place of modern Italian graphic design. The historiographical canon is challenged, and a key premise of the book is set: professionalisation is an ongoing process of becoming and practices are in a constant state of formation and under continuous renegotiation. First, the introduction locates graphic design in Italian design history. It stresses the uneven state of the historiography and criticises its inward-looking attitude. Secondly, the introduction explains the book’s approach to design practice as a historically constructed and socially produced concept. It draws on existing literature within design history scholarship, sociology and the history of the professions. Thirdly, the introduction explains how the book fits with existing scholarship on modernism: it clarifies how it understands the term and how it seeks to complicate linear narratives and overcome a tendency towards the aesthetic perspective and a focus on design celebrities. Lastly, it suggests the book’s approach towards Italian Fascism and its attempt to explore the impact of Fascism on everyday life and practice. A brief consideration of primary sources precedes the chapter synopsis.

As the introduction began by challenging the birthdate and place of Italian graphic design, so the conclusion reaffirms that its supposed ‘birth’ was in fact a long and uneven process that bridged the war years and never reached a definitive and uncontested outcome. After briefly summarising the content of the book, the conclusion pulls together the arguments made in the preceding chapters in order to describe how the articulation of graphic design practice in Milan can be understood as resulting from a complex relationship of factors. It shows how semantic shifts were evidence of changes in the way graphic design practice was being understood in Milan between the 1930s and 1960s. It expresses the book’s contribution to modernism studies through an emphasis on local networks and power relations, a close reading of primary sources, and a focus on design practice, education and mediation. Finally, the conclusion affirms the richness of using a graphic design-based approach to think about Italian design and culture, as well as the potential of applying this approach to other geographies and historical periods. More contemporary perspectives on the topic of graphic design practice in Italy are also offered to demonstrate that professionalisation is an open-ended process.

employs Studio Boggeri as a case study to illustrate how graphic and advertising practitioners found themselves on common ground and joined forces in the interwar period. In an attempt to extend the field of their activity beyond book design and poster art, graphic practitioners focused on everyday visual communication and printed ephemera. Their interest in commercial graphics coincided with the impact of an American-inspired approach to advertising. The chapter provides new perspectives into Studio Boggeri, examines how and why Antonio Boggeri promoted modernist techniques and aesthetics, and discusses his role in the definition of the practice. Moreover, it sheds light on working and commissioning practices at Studio Boggeri from its foundation in 1933 throughout the war years. Departing from the analysis of self-promotional ephemera, it also addresses the ways in which Boggeri constructed a recognisable image for his studio and adapted it to the changed socio-political circumstances of post-war Italy. As such, it looks at the impact of Fascism on designers’ everyday practice and representation strategies. Finally, the chapter explores Boggeri’s attempt to position the studio at the vanguard of national and international graphic design by hiring practitioners who were trained in Switzerland and had networks abroad.

explores the relationship between graphic designers and the Milan Triennale from 1933 to 1957. First, the Triennale is approached as a mediating channel: a public platform to showcase the criteria of good taste and improve public understanding of the practice. Secondly, the Triennale is explored as a commissioning body: an institutional client which commissioned graphic practitioners to design its own visual identity. While showing continuity in the drafting of the practice between the interwar and post-war period, the chapter also addresses the adaptation of design discourses to changing political circumstances. For instance, it traces the critical debates that gradually associated modernist aesthetics with the notion of good taste over two decades. At the same time, it problematises the malleability of modernist graphics as a vehicle of ideologies beyond the design realm. Indeed, an analysis of fascist political exhibitions and propaganda displays – such as the Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista in Rome – brings into question the association with democratic and humanist ideals that modernist aesthetics acquired in the post-war period. Chapter 3 also suggests that exhibition design offered practitioners a means of working in three dimensions and experimenting in dialogue with architects and others outsider the typography workshop.

By looking at conflicts, negotiations and temporary alliances between the Aiap (Association of Italian Advertising Artists) and the ADI (Association for Industrial Design), chapter 5 investigates graphic designers’ changing organisational strategies and shows how they mirror the shifting position of the practice in between advertising and design. In line with the book’s overall argument, it demonstrates that practices are in a constant state of formation and that professional bodies play a key role in this open-ended process. Considering graphic designers’ multiple social identities and fields of practice, the chapter investigates graphic design’s continuous renegotiation of its own boundaries and its adaptation to changing design discourses. To better understand the differences between the Aiap and the ADI, and therefore the membership strategies of graphic designers in Italy, it explores contemporary debates around the position of graphic design at the intersection between two allegedly incompatible fields, namely advertising and design. While looking at the local Italian scene, it analyses transnational circuits – the Alliance Graphic Internationale and International Council of Graphic Design Associations – to investigate the ways in which Milan’s graphic designers participated in and responded to transnational debates on graphic design.