NODE is a Berlin- and Oslo-based design studio founded in 2003 by Anders Hofgaard and Serge Rompza. The studio works collaboratively across various media, focusing on editorial, identity, exhibition and interactive projects, in close relationship with clients, ranging from individuals to mostly cultural institutions. Recent projects include the new website for Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA); the identity for HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin; the Center for Advanced Visual Studies Special Collection (CAVS) website for MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT); and the design for the Lithuanian pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia.

“We believe brands are like people: they will stand out through their unique personalities and attitudes.” Base is a leading international branding firm led by creatives based in New York, Brussels and Geneva. Base's work lives at the intersection of business and culture, with a client roster that includes renowned cultural institutions, corporations, fashion houses, media companies, colleges, celebrities, cities and many more.

Hort emerged from the Frankfurt techno scene in 1994, originally founded by Eike König as "Eikes grafischer Hort". The studio moved to Berlin in 2007 and has been growing as a group ever since. Hort does art direction, branding, creative consultancy, editorial design, graphic design, illustration, lectures and workshops. Hort works with institutions such as Arte, Bauhaus Dessau, Bergen Assembly, Mousonturm, Frankfurter Positionen and Tanzplattform Deutschland, as well as brands like Adobe, IBM, Microsoft, Nike, The New York Times and Universal Music. People working at Hort are Anne Büttner, Eike König, Elizabeth Legate, Tim Rehm, Tim Schmitt, Tim Sürken and Alan Woo, together with other freelancers and interns.

G Design was established in Athens by the designers Michalis Georgiou and Dimitris Stefanidis to work in a fieldthat encompasses a host of disciplines, from brand identity and packaging to strategic design and digital experience. The studio perceives every project as an opportunity for everybody involved in the creative process to be enriched with learning. The impression made by their design work can be summarised as the concepts of clarity, authenticity and emotive resonance. In the vision adopted by the G Design Studio, the same degree of importance is attributed to new technologies and practical skills. The aim is to produce design that is rich with meaning, capable of sparking our imagination and of producing lasting effects. Michalis Georgiou holds a diploma from the London College of Printing and is Graphic Design Pathway Leader at the Vakalo College of Art and Design, where he has lectured for more than twenty years. Dimitris Stefanidis was educated in London, Athens and the Pratt Institute in New York. He has worked with Pentagram New York and FutureBrand in London and currently lectures in Branding at the Vakalo College.

Founded in Milan in 1997 by Andrea Bacaloni, Francesco Cavalli, Bruno Genovese and David Pasquali, Leftloft is an independent design office where ideas, people and skills are encouraged to flow together and merge to develop a broader vision of design, of culture and of communication. In 2009, Leftloft also opened an office in New York. The office operates with a design team in which each individual is specialised in several fields, from branding to web design. Leftloft has put its name to many projects in Italy and across the world, partnering with some of the most important private-sector businesses and public-sector institutions in Italy and elsewhere, such as the Inter football club, Mondadori, the Milan Triennale, dOCUMENTA (3), Cassina, Colmar, Pirelli Hangar-Bicocca, subito.it, the Istanbul Biennale, RCS Corriere della Sera, the Feltrinelli Foundation, Sinistra Italiana, the Castle of Rivoli, Expo 2015, the Venice Biennale, the European Union, GS1 Italy, Loescher and Slowear. The structure also include Luft, a think tank established to develop creative thinking and collaborative production, which operates primarily in the fields of identity, research, concept, strategy, art direction and narration.

Pentagram was founded in 1972 in Needham Road, London, by a group of friends – Alan Fletcher, Theo Crosby, Colin Forbes, Kenneth Grange and Mervyn Kurlansky – and is now one of the world’s largest independent graphic design consultancies, led by the 21 partners, all of whom are leaders in their individual fields. With offices in London, New York, San Francisco, Berlin and Austin, Pentagram can design anything: architecture, interiors, products, identities, advertising, publications, posters, books, infographics, exhibitions, websites, and digital installations. Each client works directly with one or more of the partners, in an organisation that reflects the office’s conviction that great design cannot happen without passion, intelligence, and personal commitment, which is demonstrated by a portfolio of work that spans five decades. In 1999, Pentagram was included in the Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Graphic Design and Designers of the Twentieth Century.

For over 25 years, Lava has been exploring the boundaries of the creative field, driven by a unique approach to communication concept development. With their Lava Lab, they challenge clients - and themselves - to experiment and research new insights and new opportunities in design, storytelling and technology. Lava has offices in Amsterdam and Beijing.

With a slogan that reads “Design that counts”, Raffinerie was founded in Zürich in 2000 and is led by three creative directors: Reto Ehrbar, Christian Hass and Nenad Kovačić. The task they have given themselves is to “create smart design solutions for organisations, firms, start-ups and everyone else”, providing a comprehensive package of support and consultancy services related to graphic design that range from art direction and corporate design to publication design and illustration, based on a mindset that goes “from print to web, or wherever our ideas might take us”. Raffinerie now employs an in-house team of 15 designers, who follow every project with curiosity and dedication, from the general outline idea to the tiniest detail. In 2016, the office won a double award at the tenth edition of the European Design Awards held in Vienna: Agency of the Year and Best of Show. This was the first time in the history of the EDA that one office has come away with the two leading awards, while also winning the Best of Show for the second time.

Studio Mut was founded by Thomas Kronbichler and Martin Kerschbaumer and is considered one of the most vibrant graphic design studios in Italy. Thomas and Martin studied product and graphic design in Bolzano, London and Lisbon, and worked at design studios all over Europe. After a phase of co-working with friends in Bolzano (Italy) — in the creative fields ranging from photography and filmmaking to architecture and interaction design — they transformed their successful collaboration into a graphic design studio. The studio consists of 4 to 5 people, who are all designers. The work includes identity, print, editorial and web design for clients spanning art, culture and commerce. They are known for their exuberant style both in person and in their work, and for creating big and colourful works, balancing in-between playfulness and seriousness. Both Thomas and Martin are members of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI), the association of the world’s leading graphic artists and designers.

Convinced that style is a global cultural practice, averse to pigeon-holing, Mirko Rizzi shifts easily between roles. If the mix of languages is the essence of the contemporary scenario, Rizzi's daily practice is a practical application of the assumption. Mirko Rizzi turns concepts into esthetic, using the latter as communication tools. He handles the immaterial making it consistent. Dryness, concentration, passion and involvement are the key to his language. Rizzi's work speaks of borderless creativity, authenticity and radicalism, without rhetoric. All power goes to the imagination because reality is a product of fantasy. Mirko Rizzi directs campaigns, curates spaces and generally invents. He is the lens-man behind the Marsèll advertising campaigns, starring not-yet-known artists, and programs the activities of Marsèlleria Permanent Exhibition, the multi-disciplinary platform he created in 2009. He is also the mind behind Gabbianacci, the ever-changing gallery-shop opened in 2011 on via Cadore. If you want to define him, he is a concept designer. With no pomp and circumstances.

Gabriele Donini (1989), designer, since 2017 is founder and partner at Giga Design Studio.
He serves as Design Director with a focus on user experience, branding and product design. Before, he was designing for Leftloft where he worked, among other clients, for Cassina, Triennale di Milano, Istanbul Biennial, Colmar, Subito and F.C. Internazionale. He created Superinternet and is also co-founder of Raumplan, assistant professor at Politecnico di Milano and visiting professor in other design schools.
He studied at Politecnico di Milano, UMPRUM (Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague) and CFP Bauer. He’s living and working in Milan.

Born in 1980, Simone spent the first half of his career working in client-side roles. He later went "the way of the Ronin", founding a Swiss-based boutique consultancy named "Merchants of Ideas" and a Japan-centric menswear accessories brand called AH, OKAY!. He further moonlights as Head of Strategy for Early Morning, a Milan-based communication studio. His expertise encompasses both the more operational side and the deeper recesses of the marketing practice: innovation and "concepting", research, creative direction, strategic planning, media. He has a penchant for the "edgier" side of things, be it in Fashion, Visual Culture or Marketing Thinking.

Born in 1972 in Monfalcone, he studied architecture in Genoa, where he began to collaborate as a sound engineer and light designer on film sets. Once in Milan, he dealt with video art and then, together with Stefano Boeri, he founded Multiplicity, a multidisciplinary collective merging visual art experience and urban design. He collaborated with Mercurio, a production studio in Milan, working as filmmaker for several ads. The following are among his most recent productions: FCA, BPER, Yamaha, Ramazzotti, GDF Suez, ENI, Indesit, Vodafone, Feltrinelli and Morellato. He is mainly known for working on music videos. In 2004, he directed music clips for Jovanotti, Tiziano Ferro, Rezophobic, Piero Pelù, Zucchero, velvet, Negramaro, Gemelli Diversi, Nek, Subsonica, Planet Funk, Motel Connection. In 2006, he was awarded the Premio Video Clip Italiano thanks to Incantevole by Subsonica. In 2003, he won Premio Solinas for the best subject in the feature film Una buona ragione.

Born in 1982, Corrado Musmeci graduated in Business Economics with a specialisation in Corporate Organisation, then worked on commercial and communication management with Fontegrafica, the family firm established by his father, of which he is now sole administrator. Fontegrafica has carved itself a distinctive niche on the printing scene and is now considered to be an international benchmark for typographic research and high-quality production. It has achieved this by accumulating specific experience in executing projects for the luxury, fashion and design sectors. Corrado Musmeci is very active in professional printing circles: he is a member of the Board of Directors of the ITS Rizzoli Institute and Vice-President of the Milan Industrial Graphics Union and has lectured in university Masters courses in Milan. He never passes up an opportunity to support and promote the culture of printed communication, partnering with institutions, schools, influencers and brands.

Andrea Braccaloni studied at the Milan Polytechnic Faculty of Architecture, where he also met his future partners. In 1997, with Francesco Cavalli, Bruno Genovese and David Pasquali, he founded the Leftloft design and communication agency, in which he works as design director, type designer and expert in communication strategy and analysis. The more significant projects he has worked on closely include designing the proprietary typeface for the newspaper Corriere della Sera, the signage and typography for Milan’s San Siro stadium, rebranding Moleskine, rebranding Oscar Mondadori and subito.it, art direction and communication for the Inter FC football club and various publishing products, such as the daily sports newspaper Dieci, the newspaper Manifesto and the magazines Panorama First, ICON, Focus and Sette del Corriere della Sera. He is a professional member of Aiap, the BEDA Register, ATypl and TDC. Since 2001, in addition to his professional work he has also been teaching at Milan Polytechnic, the CFP Bauer and the IED in Milan.

A graphic designer and calligrapher, Luca Barcellona uses lettering as the main component of his creations, whose aim is to induce the manual dimension of an art as age-old as handwriting to cohabit with the languages and tools available in the digital age. In 2003, he teamed up with Rae Martini and Marco Klefisch to found the collective Rebel Ink. In 2009, he worked with the calligrapher Klaus Peter Schaffel for the National Museum in Zurich to create a faithful reproduction of a large-scale globe whose original dated back to 1569, practising his calligraphy with original materials (goose quills and natural inks). The brands that have commissioned lettering from him include Carhartt, Nike, Mondadori, Zoo York, Dolce & Gabbana, Sony BMG, Seat, Volvo, Universal and Eni. He teaches calligraphy at the Italian Calligraphy Association and holds workshops in several European cities. In 2010, he produced his own clothing line, the Luca Barcellona Gold Series. More recently, he brought out his first monographic book, Take Your Pleasure Seriously, with the publisher Lazy Dog Press, where he is also a partner.

Born in Milan in 1961, at the age of twenty-five Francesco Dondina established Dondina Associates to work in the fields of brand identity and communication design, focusing primarily on its applications to the areas of fashion, design, art and culture. His studio’s more important clients have included Giorgio Armani, Krizia, Valentino, Ferragamo, L’Oréal Paris, Cassina, the City of Milan, the MoMA, Feltrinelli and MUBA, the Milan Children’s Museum. He designed the images for the exhibitions of Bramantino in the Sforza Castle and of Bernardino Luini in the Royal Palace, both in Milan. With Marco Zanuso Jr. and Giuseppe Rabonim he designed the ticket offices for Expo Milano 2015. From 2010 to 2012, Dondina Associates also had a base in New York, since in that period he partnered with the Asia Society Museum and the American Ballet Theatre. In 2009, he published a book of an interview with Bob Noorda, Una vita nel segno della grafica. In 2015, he devised the Graphic Design Lectures cycle of events held at the Sforza Castle and, in 2016, he curated SIGNS, an exhibition about contemporary Italian graphic design held in the Base location in Milan. He has taught at the Cfp Bauer and Milan Polytechnic for many years.