Poetry and cultural heritage
In 2021 we began the rebranding of Iris Ceramica, a worldwide leader in the production, design and sales of tiles, part of Iris Ceramica Group.



The rebranding of Iris Ceramica was assigned to us in the late 2021. The first step involved a detailed analysis of the company’s history, from which emerged a mutual intention to reclaim the artistic expression that marked its first years of activity. In the 1970s, the company added to its mission something of the cultural fermentations of that decade – fueled by a strong desire for experimentation.
The public event called ‘Pollution’ (Bologna, October 1972) – a radical artistic event of awareness and social/environmental challenges, combining communication, art, and music – was exemplary. The project was masterminded by designer and art director Gianni Sassi. Iris Ceramica provided temporary outdoor flooring made up of 10,000 ceramic tiles, each one reproducing a healthy soil surface. In two weeks, 24 artists and 2 musical groups were invited to liven up that public space and ‘pollute’ it with art and music.
As evidence of this contamination, the cover of an album by the Italian progressive rock musician Franco Battiato (also entitled ‘Pollution’, and published in January 1973) depicts one of the tiles that paved Piazza Santo Stefano in Bologna during the event.
For us, this desire to experiment, this important heritage was the spark that triggered the creative process.

One of the key points was to preserve the existing logo, so to give greater dynamism to the visual identity we decided to combine the historical logo with a pictogram obtained from the logo itself.



An important part of the project was also the design of two custom fonts developed by Cast Foundry: Iris 1961 serif and Iris 1961 sans, customized to incorporate the brand’s personality in any medium.
Iris 1961 serif is dark and narrow modern. In addition to pairing with Iris Sans evoking Sassi’s typographic approach, it mimics the inking of print media of 50 years ago by exhibiting thick graces and rounded inner corners.

Iris 1961 sans is a linear typeface with a clear humanistic imprint, a sanserif aligned with the geometricising trends of Italian graphics in the 1970s, when Gianni Sassi chose to compose Humus magazine by alternating Helvetica and Times New Roman.

The new identity has been applied to all communication tools, starting from the new collection catalogues and a progressive updating of the pre-existing ones.







