The Client
Franco Giacometti
Franco Giacometti, trained at the Superior Course of Industrial Design in Venice, launched his professional career in 1963 alongside Diego Birelli. Their early projects included the visual identities for the Il Fontego bookstore in Venice and the Galileo bookstore in Mestre (Venice). In 1964, Giacometti moved to Paris, working as a graphic designer for the magazine Elle. In the late 1960s, he returned to Italy to focus on corporate identity projects for companies that would later become icons of Italian industry, including Benetton, Aprilia, Nordica, and Kappa.
Context and needs
In 2023, Franco Giacometti donated his professional archive to Iuav University of Venice, ensuring its inclusion in the university’s larger initiative: the Archivio Progetti—a project aimed at acquiring the archives of renowned architects and designers. This donation created the need to digitize a significant portion of the materials housed in the archive to preserve and make them accessible.
The Project
The project focused on digitizing a substantial part of the documentation within Franco Giacometti’s archive, complementing the physical materials already donated to Iuav. This process enabled the preservation and digital accessibility of historically and professionally significant documents. The project specifically targeted various materials, including articles from G&D magazine, brochures produced for Benetton accompanied by various images and binders of work for numerous other clients.
Results
The digitization of Franco Giacometti’s professional archive has yielded significant results in terms of accessibility and preservation. A large portion of the archived documentation has been converted into digital formats, ensuring its long-term conservation. The process has made it easier to access a wide variety of documents, such as specialized magazine articles from G&D, brochures created for prestigious clients like Benetton, and a broad collection of works for various clients, including graphic and design materials. This effort not only helps preserve Franco Giacometti's professional legacy but also makes his contributions to the fields of design and visual communication more accessible and widely usable.
