'Stile Industria' and “A Production of Quality and Style”: Design Culture in Italy through Industrial Photography

Abstract

On 28 August 1954, the 10th Triennale was inaugurated in Milan. In the same year, the first issue of Stile industria, the first Italian magazine dedicated entirely to the industrial design, was published in June. The magazine, playing a crucial role in the cultural promotion of design in Italy, aims to understand and enhance the role of industrial design in society, celebrating the designer's activity, which takes on a new and decisive importance. The articles in the magazine, written by experts in the field, as well as critics, artists, graphic designers and scholars, offer detailed insights into the different forms that design can take. Through images, Stile industria documents “a production of quality and style”, with the use of industrial photography accompanying technical notions in a precise, didactic and immersive manner, with a lively and illustrated layout. 
The contribution analyses the relationship between image and text within the forty-one issues of Stile industria, identifying the visual strategies and recurring codes that have contributed to the construction of the imagery of Italian design and the birth of Made in Italy.