The new Helvetika site is online.

Beginning this month, we will be in touch at regular intervals.
We will not be posting real articles, but rather the thoughts that spring up while doing our job. Like the conceptual photographs we take every 15 to 20 days. From here forth, we will use the word snapshots. The aim is to better explain our complex profession to those who work with us (our customers, suppliers, employees), but especially to those who could or would like to work with us, or the great mass of young graphic designers that all too often carry with them (from school) a very limited idea of the areas of interest and skills needed to produce quality graphic design.

In the snapshots, digression will be the master, in an attempt however to never let it become amusement. Digression, because one of the fundamental characteristics of our work is knowing how to pull together different, often seemingly irreconcilable, problems (especially in the absence of appropriate cultural reference points.)
The first snapshot is not what you are currently reading, but the one published on the home page of the site (yet another excuse to get you to visit it) with the subtle title:
What sort of hope do you place in love?
But the title is anything but pretentious, and perhaps if you read the shapshot through to the end you will agree with me. It is about the surrealists, Luis Buñuel, gratuitousness, of doing good while doing your job and doing your job well, the City of Hope foundation, Gianni Capovilla, but also the famous series of romance novels in Italy, Harmony, and Gino Veronelli (not in relation to one another, however).

On our site you can also consult the portfolio that, contrary to custom, is not strictly self-referential. The projects (almost all published and produced, only a handful of which were up for awards) are not presented arbitrarily, but were selected from the many because they include at least one point of peculiar interest. Each project is presented with notes in the form of bullet points about the main features that characterize the style. They are critical points, solved more or less successfully. This section can be defined as a small gym in understanding, in this case even of self-understanding, which is never wrong to do, archive your work.

You can also learn more about our workshop, thanks to the many images in the slideshow. Here you can discover our history, our philosophy (may the masters of deep thought forgive me for the misuse of the august word), of our (so-called) science and our geography. You can even find out something more about our conduct.

13/01/2012 Filippo Maglione