“Drawing the future. Development, innovation, sustainability, beauty“: this was the theme of the 2020 edition of the IDD-Italian Design Day, the theme review that took place last November 5, in an exclusively virtual format. Promoted since 2017 by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Farnesina in collaboration and with the support of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, the Italian Design Day has established itself over the years as an effective tool for the promotion of design and internationalization of a strategic and decisive industrial sector for the Country System. The rich programme of Italian Design Day 2020 includes more than one hundred events all over the world, including competitions, exhibitions and presentations of design objects and speeches by designers, critics, specialised journalists and researchers, organised by the network of Embassies, Consulates, Italian Cultural Institutes and ICE offices abroad.  The 2020 edition, scheduled for March 25th and suspended due to the Covid-19 emergency, has been realized in digital mode, through the diffusion on line of about one hundred short video clips.
The testimonials of the Italian culture of the project, including Giulio Cappellini, Marco Piva, Carlo Colombo, Michele De Lucchi, Francesco Lucchese, presented themselves on the website (italiandesignday.it) with short recorded speeches, on the YouTube channel (Italian Design Day Official) and on an Instagram profile (italiandesignday_official).
Everything is collected in the event's digital catalogue, available for free download.

The proactive capacity of Made in Italy

The theme of Italian Design Day 2020, “Designing the future. Development, innovation, sustainability, beauty“, aims to define the proactive capacity of Italian design and Made in Italy, to draw new scenarios, able to put at the centre of the work of architects and designers the improvement of human life and the protection of the planet. These themes are even more topical in the context of the health emergency linked to Covid-19.
“The theme chosen for 2020“, says Dario Franceschini, Minister for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, in the introduction to the Catalogue, “is more topical than ever in the difficult circumstances we are experiencing. The skills of Italian designers, promoted all over the world through the network of Embassies, Consulates, Institutes of Italians of Culture and Offices of the Institute for Foreign Trade, have the power to imagine a future in which, thanks to beauty and innovation, a genuinely sustainable development path can be undertaken“.
The creative ability, the aesthetic sense, the quality of materials and production processes have made Italian design one of the most appreciated symbols of Italy's image and lifestyle abroad. Lorenzo Angeloni, General Manager for the Promotion of the Country System says: “I am deeply convinced that the response to the economic crisis generated by Covid-19 can become an accelerator of change, and that Italian design will succeed in showing the world its ability to redefine itself and impose itself as 'avant-garde' in this new phase of transition“.
Italian Design Day 2020 is a proactive comparison of experiences and reflections that bears witness to Italy's commitment to a responsible model of development, capable of reconciling sustainability, innovation and beauty.