Culture Archive | Elementi https://www.elementi-design.com/category/culture/ Corporate Design, Web Design, Marketing Consulting Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:13:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://www.elementi-design.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/cropped-elementi-sign-512-32x32.png Culture Archive | Elementi https://www.elementi-design.com/category/culture/ 32 32 Capability Versus Subtlety https://www.elementi-design.com/capability-versus-subtlety/ https://www.elementi-design.com/capability-versus-subtlety/#comments Sun, 15 Mar 2026 10:33:27 +0000 https://www.elementi-design.com/?p=17690 Der Beitrag Capability Versus Subtlety erschien zuerst auf Elementi.

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Capability Versus Subtlety.

Not too long ago, we published our 10 Years story to celebrate a decade of our design studio’s existence. It expressed not only my deep connection to Italy, but also what this country and its people have done for my creative vision. It was about a perspective that has come surprisingly into focus again in recent days, with the growing discrepancy between Europe and the United States — or let’s say, between the Old and the New World.

“What truly has occupied my mind is the rise of Artificial Intelligence.”

But since I am less of a political person, this is not what has occupied my mind most recently. What truly has, of course, is the rise of Artificial Intelligence.

Over the past year, my way of working seems to have changed completely, especially in its technical aspects — in the capacity to realize ideas. And to anticipate: I admit I have enjoyed it immensely. For a simple reason. I can suddenly do things that a year ago I could not even have imagined. It has opened new horizons — not only by expanding my technical capabilities, but also by giving me the audacity to think in new ways. All of a sudden, we are able to compete with the big agencies. We can focus more on what we want to achieve instead of merely on how to achieve it.

“But at the same time, I began wondering — as I think many of us have — whether this will ultimately do more harm than good.”

But at the same time, I began wondering — as I think many of us have — whether this will ultimately do more harm than good. There are, of course, many people reflecting on these questions more deeply. And again, I admit that my joy in working with AI as a powerful tool outweighs my concerns about whether we should or should not use it.

However, over time I have also come to understand its limits. And here, in a way, the circle closes back to my thoughts about the New and the Old World. The limits become clearer with each passing day. It is capability versus subtlety. While the former focuses on precision and rational logic, the latter is about feeling — about sensing which of two choices is the right one. Often, at the beginning, these choices are incredibly small: how many pixels to enlarge an element to keep it in balance with another; how many decimal places to adjust the opacity of a color (even though color itself enters the realm of relativity — but that would require another story).

“This feeling — let’s call it the search for beauty, for balance — is deeply subtle.”

This feeling — let’s call it the search for beauty, for balance — is deeply subtle. And when I try to involve my precious collaborator, AI, its limits become increasingly clear. It cannot truly do this. Or rather, not without hours or even days of verbal explanation to describe something that the human eye perceives instantly.

Again, I do not wish to begin a debate about whether this is only a matter of time — or, perhaps more fundamentally, whether we will still need that human sensitivity in the future. I am simply not interested in that discussion here. I only wish to express this thought. And perhaps, last but not least, to break a lance for my beloved Italy — for my beloved Old World, Europe.

Portrait by Antonella Iovino

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]]> https://www.elementi-design.com/capability-versus-subtlety/feed/ 2 Trifolio Magic — The Making Of https://www.elementi-design.com/trifolio-magic-the-making-of/ https://www.elementi-design.com/trifolio-magic-the-making-of/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2022 11:14:22 +0000 https://www.elementi-design.com/?p=11566 I thought for a while about whether to feature this as a project on our website or something else. It didn't seem to fit with the rest. Not only because of the topic it tells about. Because books seem so far away from the big modern design topics like application development, UX design and so on. Still, I decided not to just skip it.

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Website Layers

Trifolio Magic — The Making Of.

Preface

I thought for a while about whether to feature this as a project on our website or something else. It didn’t seem to fit with the rest. Not only because of the topic it tells about. Because books seem so far away from the big modern design topics like application development, UX design and so on. Still, I decided not to just skip it. Again, not because of the result, the final product, which is actually a website. But because it contains so many interesting facts about how it came to be and why it is “magic” to me. [Stefan Seifert]

Website Background Images

01. Photography.

There are photographers who are very good at photographing people, others who are good at photographing architecture or landscapes, and so on. And then there are the artists. Not that the former are not also artists. Of course they are. But there are those who have a very special way of looking at things. They may not be the ones who can represent an object or a person in the best of all possible ways. But they see substance, mere ideas of something where other people see nothing special. We hired Italian photographer Antonella Iovino because she is one of those artists.

We needed this artistic quality to reflect the special tactile quality of the famous books Trifolio prints for museums and renowned artists around the world. The feeling you get when you run your hands over the turned pages, when you touch the high color density of the printed images.

02. Creating the Magic.

What could we do now as a key to tell the long traditional story of this particular print shop? Something that symbolized the magic that comes from these books? And there it was. The color powder (because they also make their own color pigments) sprinkled over the pages by the hand of a fairy!

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Particle Code Detail “Magic Powder”

To achieve this, we customized one of the fabulous particle scripts found on the web. However, some significant changes were required because we wanted the powder to expand itself as the user scrolled down the story. For each section, it should “magically” align with the chapter headings and disappear after a short time so as not to disrupt the reading experience. In addition, the powder should change color (5) smoothly depending on the color accents in the background photography (6).

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1/8

1/4

1/4

1/2

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Grid System Based on the Golden Ratio

03. Some Magic Numbers.

But what captivated us most about this project was the layout aspect. We’ve experimented a lot with CSS variables, and this time we wanted to go all the way. So we decided to use a single base value, which is 38.2vw (where 100vw is the total width of the screen), and thus the smaller divisor according to the ratio of the golden section 1/1.618. This sets the height of the foreground sections (4). All other measurements within the sections and the distances between elements are defined as fractions of this one number.

CSS Rules With –section-height as Unique Root Measure

Trifolio CSS Detail
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So when it came to the responsiveness of the website, we only had to manipulate a single value. All elements fit together perfectly, regardless of the width of the device. We also have a simple tool to “open” the gaps between the sections in the vertical for narrow devices to get enough room for the magic of the powder particles. The background images, which shift slightly against each other as the page scrolls, have been carefully retouched to invisibly close the gaps with an underlying common background color. (1–3)

04. Typography.

Another very interesting aspect of this particular storytelling website was the typographic design. Since we’re talking about and for book lovers, we felt it was necessary to focus on typography that would be both elegant and functional on all devices and in all situations. In part, work we had already done on the Trifolio parent website: the Trifolio web fonts. These customized fonts radiate their subtle elegance in large headlines with sublime line contrast and remain legible at small sizes. In total, we have created 13 font versions for one typeface.

These fonts differ mainly in terms of contrast and thickness of lines. The larger ones tend to have progressively finer lines and more subtle details as their rhythm tightens, while their smaller cousins do the opposite. Via CSS, the font variants also change smoothly as the browser window resizes. In addition, all families include different language versions with special features such as longer hyphens in American. This has ensured that the heavy database of Trifolios’ large portfolio does not need to be touched, yet typographic details have been corrected retroactively.

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]]> https://www.elementi-design.com/trifolio-magic-the-making-of/feed/ 4 Why Italians Do It Better https://www.elementi-design.com/italians-do-it-better/ https://www.elementi-design.com/italians-do-it-better/#comments Mon, 13 May 2019 11:06:08 +0000 https://www.elementi-design.com/?p=8360 It was in the late nineties when I made my first experiences in design in collaboration with Italian native designers and creatives. I stopped by to work for Italian art director genius Luca Stoppini at Vogue Italy doing some exclusive typefaces for their library. At the time we finished this project I got quite settled in the beautiful historical center of Verona city in north Italy and I decided to stay. Here is why.

Der Beitrag Why Italians Do It Better erschien zuerst auf Elementi.

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Why Italians Do It Better.

It was in the late nineties when I made my first experiences in design in collaboration with Italian native designers and creatives. I stopped by to work for Italian art director genius Luca Stoppini at Vogue Italy doing some exclusive typefaces for their library. At the time we finished this project I got quite settled in the beautiful historical center of Verona city in north Italy and I decided to stay. Here is why.


Piazza Dei Signori,
 Verona, Italy

01. Renaissance.

At night, walking through the streets of an Italian historic center under the yellow street lights you feel the presence of something. A value imminent in every single detail and it includes also the people themselves. It is the remembrance of Renaissance spirit. It is part of Italy’s heritage and people are proud of it. It affects common persons just as it does artists or designers. Consequently, an artist is perceived as an integrated part of society not someone opposed to it.

02. Light.

Even in winter the air of Italian cities is pregnant with sun light. It is soaked up and spread by the humidity in the air. It surrounds contours with a shimmering halo and colors appear much more yellow and warm as they do in post Alpine countries. Even the human iris adapts itself over longer term to this bright light condition. As a result, the ability to differentiate subtle color shadings is higher evolved than in an eye habited to northern hemisphere.

03. Beauty as a Value.

Did you ever have the impression that people almost feel embarrassed speaking about beauty? Well, it is recognized as a value but always seems to be accompanied by lots of questions. Will this work also? Will this help us? Is it politically correct? Etc. Let me assure you you will not find any Italian citizen wondering if beauty might be anything else than just beautiful. It is a value in itself just like a precious raw material. And everyone loves it unaskedly.

04. Craftsmanship Attitude.

What may sound anachronistic at a first glance constitutes another point of strength in Italian design: the craftsmanship attitude. Love for the detail, fearless confrontation of fatigue derives from a historical inclination towards the art of creation by hand. If it is coupled to a visionary view of the future the results are overwhelming. Luxury brands as Bulgari among many others reflect just the tip of the iceberg of this Italian innate tendency.

«Non sono un uomo di cultura, non ho approfondito la storia dell’arte, o dell’architettura ma sento un qualcosa dentro che mi dice SÌ questo è bello, SÌ questo ha uno spessore, SÌ questo affascina … o con altrettanta facilità capire se è pacchiano, falso, artefatto, o peggio brutto. È un qualcosa che arriva dal fatto che siamo circondati dal bello, lo vediamo da quando abbiamo un anno di vita: forme, colori, suoni, luci ci formano.»

MASSIMO TONOLLI, CEO TRIFOLIO SRL
The Italian Renaissance Spirit
AN INSPIRING MIXTURE.

I admit some kind of daring theses. Everyone is invited to join discussion about them. You might also ask what all this has to do with the more modern points of view regarding design, as for example functionality in user experiences. But I have the impression that in this country it is in fact not felt as a contradiction, on the contrary. Beauty as a natural component derived from unconscious experiences made in the past by previous generations combines with contemporaneity and complexity of modern life admiringly. Italian luxury brands mirror in the shop windows together with ancient facades harmonically…

Photography: Stefan Seifert

“Based on classical canons, Italian creative output, according to my personal experiences, is characterized by a vast range of colors, an incredible set of form variety, original ideas and fantasy.”

Video at the Giardino Giusti, Verona, Italy: Antonella Iovino

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