Making room for creativity: in Foscarini’s new Social Strategy Instagram becomes a stage where energy, creative freedom and research are the protagonists.
Constantly seeking original and distinguishing solutions – not just in terms of products, but also in narrative approaches – Foscarini has decided to rethink the industry’s typical conventions of social media communication and evolves its storytelling in an unprecedented and distinctive way. The Instagram @foscarinilamps feed is transformed into a virtual place that offers room for well-known and emerging exponents in the world of visual arts, with the objective of developing amazement, beauty and fun. A kaleidoscopic project where international artists and content creators with different backgrounds – from digital art to photography, illustration to motion art – have been invited to “play” with Foscarini collection and get inspired by a catalogue of lamps composed by different styles, materials, and designers.
“Foscarini is a company that thrives on ideas, curiosity, the desire to experiment and experience. We were looking for a different and more distinctive storytelling for our social media channels – a new solution which, dealing with the limits and characteristics of the medium, would allow us to make room for creativity, to gather stimuli and to trigger connections, swapping know-how and combining experiences. This new digital project will grant space for original contents that, through visual impressions where our light is the protagonist, will enable us to discover the power of ideas” – Carlo Urbinati, Foscarini president and founder.
Instagram thus becomes a stage where energy, creative freedom and research are the protagonists. A storytelling through images, animations, and videos, taking form in a contemporary art space, tracking the narrative thread of the Foscarini brand, with its essence, inspirations and collections.
The first contribution comes from Luca Font – a versatile Italian artist – with an original series of illustrations inspired by modernism, with lively geometric effects. He is followed by the well-known Israeli illustrator Noma Bar – the master of negative space. And then: Federico Babina, Oscar Pettersson, Alessandra Bruni and others that will follow in the year. Unique voices, styles and interpretations, narrating thoughts, sensations and emotions triggered by Foscarini lamps, to emphasize their forms, the ideas behind their concepts, or the effects they produce in a space. An intense calendar of unusual ideas and visions on the theme of light; a creative pathway that expresses reflections on the role played by Foscarini lamps in the transformation and definition of a personal interpretation of the home environment.
First episode: Luca Font
Writer, illustrator, tattoo artist: Luca Font, born in Bergamo in 1977, lives in Milan and New York, the metropolis that has been the cradle of Graffiti Art. And in fact Luca’s first steps in art stemmed from his passion for graffiti. From trains to walls, tattoos to paper, all the way to digital art: the visual universe of Luca Font is composed of various media, sharing in a distinctive style that reflects a particular taste for abstraction, graphic design and lettering. His production is marked by constant pursuit of visual synthesis, as well as a graphic approach that blends minimalism and expressive flair.
In the series of illustrations created for Foscarini, Font visually narrates the role of light and the lamps of Foscarini in the definition of the personality of a space, both at night – when the lamps are on – and in the daytime, when they are off. The six illustrations form a sort of circadian cycle in which the home develops its own character through pareidolic illusion.
“In this new project I have developed for Foscarini from the outset the focus has been on the importance of light in relation to spaces: not only during the night, when the light is obviously artificial, produced by lamps, but also in the daytime, when the lamps enter a different dimension as design objects. Light (or more precisely lights) and Foscarini lamps become two factors that in different ways, depending on the time, contribute to define the personality of the home, which in turn is a reflection of the personality of those who decorate and inhabit the spaces”. – Luca Font
Second episode: Noma Bar
Our journey into creativity continues: it is now the turn of of Avinoam Bar, aka Noma Bar, the “master of Negative Space”, internationally known for its original style, sitting somewhere at the intersection of illustration, art and graphic design. After graduating at the Bezales Academy of Arts and Design in 2000 he conquered the world: his work has appeared in many magazines, covers and publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Economist, Internazionale, Wallpaper*, Esquire and The Guardian… only to name a few.
Ironic and playful, capable of looking where others don’t, Noma Bar took inspiration from Foscarini’s most iconic lamps and made them protagonist of his creative universe to visually narrate the intimate feeling of being at home. Your home, and no one else’s. The result is a series of six minimalist images in which – through a skilful use of “negative space” – multiple levels of interpretation are concealed and stories emerge when looking at the details more closely.
Artistic expressions of a stunning simplicity, a common trait between the artist’s and Foscarini’s approach: liberate the essential to thrill and catch the eye. Thus the iconic floor lamp Twiggy becomes a house, and the face of a person capturing the simple and intimate relationship between people and decorative lights, objects that are not needed only to fill spaces with light but above all to fill souls with warmth. While the table lamp Lumiere, as if by magic, becomes the nose of a dog that careful hands cuddle to make him fall asleep – can you think of something that feels more homely than this?
“I know how to appreciate good and timeless silhouettes and luckily I had Foscarini’s great iconic silhouettes to work with. The lamps inspired me to find daily situations inside and outside Home with some uses of light elements together with Foscarini lights that beautifully integrated.”. – Noma Bar
Featured artist of May: Oscar Pettersson
It’s time to add another layer of creativity to “What’s in a lamp?” project, a new perspective, a different style with the objective of developing more amazement, beauty and fun. The third artist to participate in the project is Oscar Pettersson. A Stockholm-based 3D motion designer whose bewildering animations portray surrealistic environments that defy physical laws and leave viewers with a yearning to understand the unknown. His unique and mesmerizing looping animations are both intricate and playful, capable of transforming complexity into captivating and inspiring designs of the cleanest order.
Pettersson describes his approach to animation as one of problem solving: “If I can find a problem, I can create a solution. Solutions are satisfying to look at.”
In his series of animations for Foscarini, he took inspiration from the design stories behind some of the company’s most loved lamps and transformed those stories into hypnotic moving images. In his neverending loops the luminous core of Eugeni Quitllet’s Satellight is a fragment of light that flies, seeking freedom. Le Soleil by Garcia Jimenez spins and magically holds a metal ball in balance on the edge of its irregular bands. In another artwork, the organic, irregular shape of Gregg by L+R Palomba is created when flying spheres collide while Giulio Iachetti’s Magneto dances with its signature magnetic sphere, like a snake charmer mesmerizing his cobra. Marc Sadler’s Twiggy dances a graceful choreography, that highlights the flexibility of its stem and you are soothed by the rhythmic swaying of a pendulum made of Aplomb suspension lamps by Lucidi e Pevere.
“Creativity for me is interesting solutions for interesting problems. The Design of Foscarini lamps are amazing, so I only had to find an interesting way to portray their functionality through concept and animation. Great designs are always inspiring for an animator.” Oscar Pettersson
