On the occasion of the 2023 edition of Italian Design Day, the Consulate General of Italy in Toronto, ICE – Italian Trade Agency, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Toronto in collaboration with ICCO – Italian Chamber of Commerce of Ontario and the George Brown College School of Design, present a panel discussion on the latest developments in Italian and Canadian design. This year’s theme is The Quality That Illuminates. The Energy of Design For People and the Environment.
Design for the New Decade:
Project Flexibility Between Architecture, Industrial Design, Branding, and Graphic Design
Friday, March 10
Doors & Registration | 5:30PM EST
Conference | 6:00PM EST
Reception | 7:30PM EST
Spadina Theatre
Alliance Française
24 Spadina Rd | Toronto ON
Please note: Seating is limited – REGISTRATION REQUIRED
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT
A roundtable talk on the latest developments in Italian and Canadian design to Rethink manufacturing and product design for a changing world on the occasion of Italian Design Day (IDD). The talk will explore how design is responding to the new challenges of a rapidly changing world where environmentally friendly industrial products are conceived to satisfy growing demand. Sustainability in design is a concept that remains at the core of product design worldwide. It refers to meeting the needs of the present while still conserving resources for future use, nevertheless pursuing beauty and craftsmanship.
A networking event with light refreshments will follow, kindly offered by the Consul General of Italy, Luca Zelioli.
OPENING REMARKS
Luca Zelioli
CONSUL GENERAL OF ITALY
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Mario Trimarchi
MARIO TRIMARCHI DESIGN
PANELISTS
Luigi Ferrara
DEAN
GEORGE BROWN COLLEGE
Centre for Arts, Design and Information Technology
Helen Kerr
CO-PRESIDENT
KerrSmith DESIGN
Maria Porro
PRESIDENT
SALONE DEL MOBILE
Maria Porro will be participating remotely
Lee Fletcher
PRINCIPAL
FLETCHER SCOTT STUDIO
MODERATORS
Veronica Manson
DIRECTOR
ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI CULTURA TORONTO
Marco Saladini
TRADE COMMISSIONER
ICE
Italian Trade Agency
FINAL REMARKS
Corrado Paina
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
ICCO CANADA
Italian Chamber of Commerce of Ontario
ABOUT ITALIAN DESIGN DAY
Italian Design Day is the annual, theme-based event launched in 2017 by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in collaboration and with the support of the Italian Ministry of Culture.
IDD offers an extensive program of promotional events created by the network of Embassies, Consulates, Italian Cultural Institutes and ICE Offices abroad and has established itself over the years as an effective instrument in supporting the promotion of design and the internationalization of a strategic industrial sector for Italian exports. Each year, to mark the occasion, 100 different testimonials become the narrators of Italian design and creativity throughout the rest of the world.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER | Mario Trimarchi
Designer and architect, he believes in the project as a tool to spread poetry in the world of things. Director of the Domus Academy Master in Design from 1990 to 1993, he was part of the Olivetti Design Studio, designing cash dispensers and personal computers. In 1999 he founded FRAGILE, a corporate identity studio that he led together with Frida Doveil, designing brands and communication systems for Banca Intesa, Cariparma, Coop Italia, Fiera Milano, Gebana, Olivetti, Poltrona Frau, Poste Italiane. He designs products for Alessi, Alias, Artemide, Caimi, Deborah Milano, De Castelli, Hansa, Numa, Pasabahçe, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Serafino Zani.
In 2016 he won the Compasso d’Oro with the Ossidiana coffee maker for Alessi. In 2019, he held his two solo exhibitions of drawings: “Mario Trimarchi: un romantique radical” at the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris, and “La cerca de la frontera entre l’útil i l’inútil” at the
Design Hub in Barcelona.
He constantly continues his sculptural research on objects, creating Oggetti Smarriti, Strawberry Fields Forever and Close to the Edge, self-produced under the MT Artworks brand.
In 2022 he was invited by Korean Craft and Design Foundation to design five little Altars in Yugi Brass at the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in Milan. In the same year, he was awarded the Targa d’Oro by the UID, Unione Italiana Disegno.
Former Professor of Corporate Identity at the Faculty of Architecture in Genoa, he currently teaches Brand Design at Naba, Product Design at Abadir and Design Thinking at Iulm.
He draws day and night.
PANELISTS
Luigi Ferrara
Luigi Ferrara, Dean, Centre for Arts, Design and Information Technology, leads program development, partnerships and innovation centres that provide students with challenging and exciting real-world learning opportunities and position George Brown College as a key player on the global stage.
Since joining the college in 2002, Ferrara has overseen a significant expansion of programs at the School of Design, the School of Fashion and Jewellery, the School of Computer Technology and the School of Media and Performing Arts. He has transformed the schools, some of which have been rated in the top 5 in Canada and top 100 in the world. CEO Magazine listed the School of Fashion and Jewellery among its top 100 fashion schools in the world (2020); Azure Magazine listed the Institute without Boundaries among the top four schools for urban design (2012); and Business Week listed the School of Design as one of its top 60 best design institutes in the world (2007).
Luigi has also served as the Director of the Institute Without Boundaries, an academic program and studio aimed at solving real-world problems through design research and strategy with goals of social, ecological and economic innovation. This has now been transformed into the Brookfield Sustainability Institute (BSI).
In 2022, Luigi was named the inaugural Chair and CEO of the Brookfield Sustainability Institute, a centre of excellence that will be housed at Limberlost Place, George Brown College’s net-zero carbon emissions mass-timber building that is set to open at Waterfront Campus in 2024. The Institute will focus on aligning the processes of digital transformation and sustainability for the benefit of communities everywhere, becoming a beacon for “smart sustainability.”
As George Brown continues to expand its physical footprint and infrastructure, Luigi advises the college senior management team on academic space planning.
Luigi has devoted his career to advocating and practicing interdisciplinary design both in Canada and internationally, working on the relationship between architecture, urban design, sustainability, digital transformation, strategy, and design thinking. He continues to take on professional design projects every year and lends his expertise to several boards and associations while showcasing his talent and knowledge through exhibitions, publications, and lectures.
Luigi holds a BA in Architecture from the University of Toronto. He is a former president and a current senator of the World Design Organization (formerly the International Council of the Societies of Industrial Design) and a registered architect with seal.
Lee David Fletcher is an Industrial designer; founding partner at Fig40, and principal at Fletcher Scott Studio. He was educated in Canada and the UK achieving an MA in Industrial Design from Manchester Metropolitan University.
His work centres on the exploration of designing and making better objects for manufacture. Objects need to be more compelling, and they need to have empathy and narrative in order to play a positive role in our lives. This is done through understanding the broader context the object lives in, bringing to it a beauty seen through the lens of people and the planet.
Experience in both manufacturing and consulting has enabled him to take the lead in reconciling all the goals for a given project and the complex, sometimes conflicting, needs of clients, users, and the community.
His work has won many international design awards and he has sat on various jury’s for design competitions. He is a professional member of the Association of Industrial Designers of Ontario and teaches Industrial Design at Sheridan College.
Helen Kerr
For over 20 years, environmental scientist and industrial designer Helen Kerr has been a leader in design, foresight, strategy, and innovation. Helen is passionate about evidenced-based research and human-centered systemic analysis. Her studio uses integrated information-gathering techniques, including ethnographic study and experience prototyping and through intensive synthesis, delivers critical innovation breakthroughs in both the public and private sector.
In 2014 Helen was the feature of a CBC Documentary entitled “Great Minds of Design”. Other accomplishments include recognition as one of Canada’s 10 most innovative designers in 2008, the 2007 Business Week IDEA Gold Medal for Design Strategy; the 2006 Nightingale Award from the Center for Health Design; and recognition in 2002 as one of 100 Globally Significant Designers.
Helen appears on television and radio as design thinker and critic. Her work is often featured in North American newspapers and magazines. Helen is also a professor in the Strategic Foresight and Innovation Graduate Program at OCAD University and has lectured at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Business and Harvard University. The studio’s work is regularly displayed at exhibitions and trade shows worldwide. Helen has been an advisor on design strategy and innovation for the city of Toronto as well as for the provincial and federal governments and has served as a juror on numerous design competitions.
In 2016, Helen was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts.
Maria Porro
Maria Porro, born in Como in 1983, is the head of marketing and communication of Porro S.p.A., the historical brand of Italian design founded by her great-grandfather Giulio back in 1925.
The company, which has slowly gained a major position in the international market, combines the tradition of craftsmanship and cutting-edge production technologies, proposing its essential language which favours simple signs and shapes.
Graduated cum laude in Set Design at Brera’s Academy of Fine Arts, Maria has worked in the world of theatre, art and great events as a designer, coordinator and curator. She has worked as a production supervisor at the ope- ning ceremonies of London 2012 and Sochi 2014’s Olympic games, and she has also collaborated as a costume and set designer with the main Italian and international theatres.
She has always been in contact with her family business and with the world of design, collaborating above all with her father Lorenzo in the product development area and with the studio Lissoni Associati in stylistic research and in the development of new products, personally following the company’s presentations at the Salone del Mobile. In 2014 she decided to join Porro permanently, focusing on strengthening the international commercial network and renewing communication strategies, up to assuming the current position, with the energy typical of the new generations and priority attention to sustainable development.
In 2017 she promoted Porro’s entry into Altagamma, the Foundation gathering excellent companies from the Ita- lian cultural and creative industry, where since 2019 she has actively represented the company within the Board of Directors. In 2017 she joined the Board of Advisors of Assarredo and since 2019 she is part of the General Council of FederlegnoArredo.
Since September 2020, Maria is the president of Assarredo, unanimously elected by the General Assembly: first woman to assume this role, she intends to face the new position with the passion, professionalism, creativity, method and dedication that has always driven her.