This autumn, the seventh Festival del Disegno will take place at venues throughout Italy. The national drawing festival was first established in 2016 as the Italian version of the UK’s ‘The Big Draw’, to unleash the ‘power of paper’ and celebrate the potential of a blank page for everyone, from student to amateur to professional. It starts with a weekend in Milan, from 10-11 September, and then continues throughout Italy for another month until 9 October 2022. There will be creative workshops for children and adults, artists’ studios to visit, drawing demonstrations with the involvement of creative associations large and small, schools, museums and libraries from all over the country.
Since 2017, the festival identity’s art director has been Trieste-based Paola Fortuna, founder of +fortuna, a graphic design studio that focuses on publication design, brand identity, wayfinding, infographics and exhibition design. One of her most recent book projects was for architects Barbarito Bancel, which was printed on Arena and Sirio papers. Fortuna originally studied architecture at Venice’s IUAV, but quickly moved into graphic design.
Each year’s festival has a different theme and is led by a prominent illustrator. For Fortuna, commissioning a different illustrator for each festival has allowed the event’s identity to evolve. ‘Each year it was important to convey a message containing the same pleasure and joy of drawing,’ she says.