We’re collaborating with Zambon to transform a series of recurring appointments, OpenZone Talks, in a digital experience. We will start on April 23rd with an in-depth analysis on the ways in which Italian businesses have implemented paths towards innovation.

Each day, as soon as we enter our studio, we gather for a circle up: a discussion that usually lasts a couple of minutes and that allows us to start the day together, tell each other how we feel and organize the workflow efficiently. We’re still doing it these days, even though our everyday life changed completely. Especially because of that. In this month’s newsletter, we try to explore new ways of being together.

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Back in 2015 Bill Gates gave a TEDTalk about the need to get going for the creation of a global health system to face the potential danger of viruses in the future. This is particularly relevant these days, that’s why we decided to scribe it.

We held our first Webinar on Zoom in collaboration with Recipes for Wellbeing: “More art for everyone: express yourself creatively with drawing“! We spent an afternoon of sharing and well-being with more than twenty participants, using drawing as a tool to explore new worlds and to imagine together, starting from the simplest objects of our homes. For those who missed this appointment, you can join us on Tuesday 7 April in English.

A really great article by Yuval Noah Harari about the current global crisis and its potential consequences and opportunities. We created a visual version of it as this is really relevant for all of us!

We are gathering more than 200 visual practitioners around the world in the first ever marathon of workshops, with 3 rounds of delivery and sense-making a day, through different regions and covering all time-zones.

With the intention of keeping in contact and collecting thoughts and impressions on this historical moment, we started the project “Reality Check”, an illustrated narration of these days which have been completely transformed. Starting from two questions (How are you spending your time? What are you learning that you didn’t know yet?), we are visualizing the answers that clients, collaborators and friends send us. Some people are revising their priorities and discovering unexpected interests, while others are still looking for a balance through it all. Finally, we share them on our social media so that everyone can see them. It’s a simple and informal initiative, yet crucial in order to shorten distances and reinforce our sense of community.

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We’ve been to Mart, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto, to host a creative workshop for more than twenty people including teachers, freelance designers, communication and graphic design enthusiasts. Through the different activities participants experimented what it means to synthesize with images and how many narrative potentials there can be. We approached visualization starting with drawings and signs, exploring different stylistic approaches and learning how to use all of this in a short story. It was a day filled with inputs and learning moments – and it was also very funny! Thank you Mart and everyone who joined us!

Today we gave our input on what it means to be facilitators and how visualization supports and fuels collaborative work. Legal design, i.e. simplifying the communication between lawyers and clients, making it more effective, strongly resonates with us. It implies the need for a re-invented language, simpler but not simplistic, that conveys key messages in a clear way and with the help of visual synthesis, a crucial tool to organize thoughts and make sense of them. We believe this is especially relevant nowadays, as the problems we face are getting more and more complex (linguistically, culturally and technologically).

We designed the illustrated panels that guide educational visits to Italia in miniatura, the thematic park more famous (and smaller!) of Italy, to talk to students of all ages of our country’s history, its dialects, its Constitution. But also science and its formulas, planets and well-known protagonists of the laws ruling the world and outer space… and many more curiosities, among which driving school! Always with a playful and light touch.