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Spectr header image with graphic and illustrations

Hello to Spectr. A new perspective on society through design and tech innovation

After a long period of conceptualization, I’m happy to finally launch a brand new research and dissemination project. An opportunity to revisit much of the investigation work I normally do for my design and teaching activities and restructure it into a form of storytelling accessible to everybody.

This is Spectr.

An online communication channel and a tool for reflection, that will analyze those innovation signals and iconic projects, loaded with historic and symbolic value, capable of impacting our culture and minds.
An attempt to create an evolutionary perspective on the past, present, and future society through the lenses of design, technology, and speculative thinking.

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We’re at the early stages and the main medium will be Instagram, where content will be shared more often and more comprehensively. I will use also Linkedin and Facebook, with different modalities according to the differences of the platforms and audiences.

Instagram → Linkedin → Facebook →

Future Mobility at Domus Academy. Lectures by Fabio Besti for the Masters in Product Design and Urban Vision & Architectural Design.

Lectures on the future of mobility, for the masters of Domus Academy

In the last half of March 2021, I gave a couple of lectures on the future of mobility for Domus Academy (one of the most prestigious postgraduate design schools in Italy and Europe, with whom I collaborated before several times). Specifically, the lectures took place inside the Envisioning Workshops for the Masters in Product Design and in Urban Vision & Architectural Design.

The goal was to try to give a perspective on the rise and development of the concept of mobility, starting from the origin of history, and arriving at the most contemporary trajectories of technological and societal innovation.

In the first place, it was a great opportunity to share many insights from past projects on future mobility, especially those developed with the Bassetti Foundation. For instance, Meet the Media Guru | Around Mobility, a semester of research ad conferences created together with MEET, the Digital Culture Center of Milan; or Self-Driving Society, an extensive educational and research project developed with Politecnico di Milano.

Moreover, it was interesting to discuss such an important topic for the future of society and our profession. In fact, the rapid development of new mobility innovations is impacting deeply the world of design and its practice. Understanding these transformations and being able to navigate them, is going to be critical for designers, who will play a huge role in shaping the way we live and move inside the urban spaces of the future.

Here below a selection of the slides from the lectures:

Licensing strategies for MIND Milano Innovation District, a workshop led by Fabio Besti for the Master in Strategic Design at POLI.design

Brand licensing for MIND Innovation District: the workshop with POLI.design

Last March I led the first workshop of the 22° edition of the Specialising Master in Strategic Design by POLI.design, the post-graduate school of design at Politecnico di Milano.

Together with the students, we tried to design innovative licensing strategies for MIND – Milano Innovation Design District. Three intensive weeks to envision the evolution and the exploitation of a new territorial brand, defining the new district born in the area of the Universal Exposition in 2015, that now aspires to become a hub for excellence in the fields of Life Sciences / Healthcare, Biotech / Pharma, Agri – food / Nutrition e Data Science / Big data.

The resulting projects will participate in the Call 4 Ideas launched by Mind Education, an initiative that involves students and universities in designing the city of the future, promoted by Arexpo and Lendlease, together with Human Technopole, IRCSS Galeazzi and Fondazione Triulza.

A great experience, with a special group of students, who put their enthusiasm and professionalism into the development of very interesting projects.

Design, psychology and the brain: a new research field

Psychology and design: a new exciting chapter

Big news. After much reflection, I’ve decided to transform one of my biggest passions into a new path of evolution for myself and my profession. I enrolled in university again and started to study for the Bachelor’s Degree in Psychological Science and Techniques at Guglielmo Marconi’s University.

Psychology for me has always been a constant interest, cultivated on the side for more than 10 years now, and has highly influenced the way I approach and practice design.

New perspectives, competencies, and knowledge will allow me to finally cross and intersect these two worlds in a very concrete way. I will be able to expand many of the themes and topics that already characterize my approach to design: like the relationship between form, artifacts, and the creation of meaning, the field of perception and sensoriality, the role of design and communication and how they influence people and behaviors, and last but not least, the impact of innovation of humans and society.

All topics that I’m already touching with my teaching activities, that now will be able to benefit from a systematic approach and rely on solid, academic foundations. Stay tuned for new projects and evolutions on the subject.

Envisioning workshop at Domus Academy: Design for the “New Normal”

A summary of the Envisioning workshop that I led last spring and summer for Domus Academy is now published on my website. Titled “The New Normal – A new tool for COVID19 and after”, the course saw students from all over the world work remotely to envision the long-term impact of the pandemic on society, in a scenario spanning between 2025 and 2050.

Started with a workshop and ended with 17 final graduation projects and theses, this interesting journey touched upon several disciplines: design research, users and market analysis, scenario building, speculative design, and of course all the main phases of a product design development process. Students adopted an interdisciplinary approach and succeeded in translating the challenges and opportunities into innovative products and solutions for our future, transformed way of living.

Aro by Pallavitha Halaga - New Normal Envisioning Workshop - Fabio Besti & Domus Academy

Takomst by Chang WenHeng - New Normal Envisioning Workshop - Fabio Besti & Domus Academy

As a case study on the website, I analyze the entire process, covering also the lectures, the exercises, and the topics presented, with a final showcase of the projects developed by students.

Discover the project →

Fabio Besti Interdisciplinary Design has a new logo

A brand new tool for the studio, essential for pushing forward my activities, which over the last years have become more diversified and focused on larger, more international potential clients. The brand new logo design is not only a stylistic operation but a strategic one, aimed at reinforcing the studio and maximize the awareness of the brand between our newly expanded target audience.

The objective of the redesign is to convey a new-found spirit of harmony, a sense of rhythm: something that we called an effect of “powerful simplicity”. This is achieved by staying clear of graphical trends and leaning heavily on the strength of typography and the use of a minimal and simplified version of the diamond symbol.

But the final solution answers additional challenges. Firstly, the need to be easily integrated into the current visual identity, characterized by the dynamic use of Futura, paired with an extended use of gradients of blue. Normally a common rule would be to avoid the use of the same font in the logo and body-copy; here Futura LT is present in both, but in the logotype, it is also subtly tweaked and customized, and this seems to be more than enough to ensure both coherence and originality to the typographic part.

Another challenging aspect that we had to confront was the compactness and scale of the typographic elements; these couldn’t take too much real estate and this is especially true for a logo containing four words. To tackle this, ‘fabiobesti’ was contracted into a single word, following also what seems to be a common way of pronouncing my name (which is quite short and can be spelled out loud with one single breath); the elements, therefore, become three and are vertically stacked by using a variable leading (that ensures both legibility and balance at different scales) and achieve the right visual compactness thanks to an unorthodox horizontal alignment (on the vertical letters “i”, “l”, and “i” of the three words) and thanks to a meticulous customization of the kerning.

To know more about the design and development process read the full case study on Behance.

Discover the project on Behance →

How can we work together?