According to Brand Finance, Italy is 9th in the ranking of the strongest and most influential national brands but, despite the promotion of many Destination Branding campaigns, there is not yet a Country Brand able to gather the set of Italian values globally recognized and rewarded by the success of Made in Italy. That’s why there’s the need to develop an institutional brand that goes beyond the mere tourist promotion of the territory and has a civic function: the final goal of this project is indeed to generate a communication system in which citizens, institutions and businesses communicate each other and encourage the valorization of Italian reputational capital.
The brand is born from the inscription of an arc inside a square module which, divided into equidistant areas, allows Italian flag colors to be identified. The round arch is also an architectural and landscape element that characterizes and distinguishes the visual culture of our country: it is for this reason that the language is based on the “stress” of the brand, where the variations of the sign make the visual identity dynamic, heterogeneous and compact; in fact, each visual variant represents one of the peculiar aspects that belong to the Italian macro-world. The chosen font for the logo is Avenir, while the visual communication system relies on Red Hat Display as it has greater readability on small formats. The arch is therefore the common thread that unites the declinations of the brand, i.e. the stationery, the web language, the editorial grids, the merchandising objects, the wayfinding system and the Made in Italy stamp.
This project was presented as a Master’s Degree Thesis at the Sapienza University of Rome and, in addition to honors, it received the Dignity for Publication.