Density Design » Wayfinding

Density Goes to Bari

Luigi Farrauto — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:03:38 +0000

On March 23-24th i’ll held a conference in Bari, at the Polytechnic, about “Wayfinding and the Image of the City”

During the first day i’ll talk about the history of wayfinding and maps, then we’ll start a short workshop about the visualization of the city. The students will be asked to think of their relationship with the city, their imaginaries, landmarks or key-points. So Bari itself will be mapped from a subjective point of view, in order to obtain and to visualize a kind of “Personal Geography”, using mind-mapping, diagrammatic languages or photographic surveys.

It’s an experiment we’ll start on that event and try to continue in the future, with the same students and maybe new discoveries.

Everybody who’s gonna pass by Bari is invited to the event.

More info to follow

Pictograms for fathers

Paolo Ciuccarelli — Sat, 09 May 2009 16:47:17 +0000

My three kids make me especially interested in the topic: could anyone help me with the meaning of the pictogram in the middle? As the third one could suggest, they are located beside the door of a male bathroom equipped to support fathers with children.

Back from Holy Land

Luigi Farrauto — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 09:53:19 +0000

The French School of Biblical and Archaeological Studies of Jerusalem is a strange place. It’s very close to Damascus Gate, the main crowdy access to the old city of Jerusalem, however time seems to be stuck in the mists of time… It’s a huge monastery, founded in 1890, where you can meet incredible people, doing interesting researchs or studies which seems to belong to another time-frame. The noises of the city, just outside the monastery walls, don’t seem to take their mind off their thoughts, their interests: once you enter in the monastery you got to a different dimension…
When I got to the school I was slightly anxious about it, I had never done any presentation in a monastery, I totally ignored the kind of situation I could have found myself in… But the atmosphere was incredible. Apart from studying the Bible, the School is the main center for archeological studies of the area, they have a great museum/collection of finds: old clays, roman coins, jars and… maps!
I’m very keen on archeology, and being there for me was like having a match at the Maracanà for a footbal fan…
During the presentation the stalls were crowded with very interesting/interested people: bible scholars, extinct languages professor, archeologists…
I spoke them about the graphic representation of the city of Jerusalem throughout the history of cartography, showing how the technics and the purposes of the representation have changhed, from symbolical depictions of an imaginary city, based on some suggestions contained in the Bible, (the renowned T-O maps), to well-detailed portrayals of the Holy Land. As Jerusalem has always played an important role/position in cartography, people enjoyed this kind of map-tour, showing a lot of interest in what I was saying.
After the presentation I visited the archaeological museum, and I saw a little part of the Map Room: a breathtaking moment, I handled representations of Idrisi maps, ancient topographies of Jerusalem, old diagrams… I was like a child in a toy factory.
Then I spent some time in the museum, drinking with some archaeologists, sumeric and ugaritic language teachers, talking about archaeological excavations, cuneiform characters, Qumran manuscripts. We were surrounded by old pieces, which my new friends were handling so naturally, asking themselves whether a coin was of a period or of another, whether and iscription on a tablet was babilonese or eblaitic… I felt I was ‘only’ a graphic designer… but that was fun.

Luigi Farrauto

Density people and Wayfinding

Paolo Ciuccarelli — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:32:38 +0000

Our brand new PhD student Luigi Farrauto – one of the very first students of the Density Design Lab – has been invited to give a conference at the “Ècole Biblique et Archéologique Francaise de Jerusalem” on the topic of cartography: “Vous êtes ici. Jérusalem dans l’histoire de la cartographie”. Luigi did his MA thesys on the design of a wayfinding system for Damascus. His project is currently under development by the local government. I hope he will be able afterward to post here a synthesis of his conference.