Miriello Grafico

When I told designer Michael Osborne I was going to be in Italy he said, “You gotta go see my design mentor, Primo Angeli. He’s living in Spoleto now. And if you don’t like Primo, you’ll still love his wife Deanie”.

I’d heard about Primo Angeli for decades, as he developed his packaging empire in San Francisco, but we had never met. I was intrigued to get an idea of what a wildly successful, type-A designer might be doing now in the bucolic small town of Campello Sul Clitunno, near Spoleto in Umbria, Italy. Maybe he spends his days covered in paint, grappling with immense canvases, straining to express his client-suppressed creative vision. Maybe he’s become a wine expert, amassing a wine cellar of Italy’s unknown best. Or maybe he’s still just trying to wind down from 40 year of running a top creative firms in a city that was at the center of the outer most reaches of the change and experimentation in the 60’s and 70’s.

Marlane and I spent two days with Primo and his rock-of-Gibralter and beautiful wife Deanie, in Campello. I found that Primo is doing a little bit of everything I projected and more. He’s still making sense of the business he piloted for decades,  stories of it’s wild successes and failures find their way into much of what he talks about. I learned that Primo loves to tell stores, like how his jukebox-selling father pleaded with him in broken English to not go into design, “Please Primo, donta do dis ding.” And I learned that Primo is also lucky, lucky to be the first born (Primo) instead of the second (Secondo). Secondo Angeli Design, just doesn’t have the same zing does it.

He doesn’t speak much Italian after ten year in Italy. But he can find the exact words for the situation when he needs them. It’s one of his gifts. When the cook at their favorite local restaurant came back to refill a basket of deep fried antipasti, Primo blurted, “Questi sono criminali”. (Those things are criminal!)

Seeing what people do with their success interests me greatly.  Primo and Deanie are living their full lives in Umbria with their opera singing son and his new wife, creating new and simple successes every day. Just like the day we spent together becoming new and fast friends. “I’ma glad you doin dat ding Primo.”- Ron

When Michael Osborne asked if I’d come up to San Francisco in late November to judge at Academy of Art University Design Show I assumed it was for his design students. But after he repeated to me five times that this was their inaugural alumni show for practicing alumni- it finally registered- alumni not students- got it. I spent three days in San Francisco with Mary Scott their graphic design director, Michael Osborne and fellow judge from Wells Fargo Bank creative, Michele Ronsen. We had dinner at Bix, I visited with design friends at 11 and MethodHome and even got around to judging and attending the opening of a very strong design show.

The quality of student work I saw at the Academy was beyond my expectation.  The level of thinking and quality of execution was beyond what I’m accustom to seeing at college level. Mary has that place on the right track and I’m looking forward to scanning their graduates. The alumni from the Academy are now scattered around, working everywhere from Nike and Disney to Tolleson Design and Cahan Associates. Our best of show award when to Cahan designer and alumni Erik Adams.

Learn more about the show and see more pics at The Academy of Art University site.

See more photo-booth candid captures from the opening on Flickr.

Coming on the heals of this Spring’s 2008 AIGA Y-Conference on Sustainability in Design was the recent AIGA San Diego Student Portfolio Review event. These two events seemed connected in my mind by how they both contributed small puzzle pieces of what I’m sensing is a rethinking of what will make design more relevant, or meaningful, in the coming years. (You might say brands and marketing are more relevant now than ever, but hold on.) Both events moved the design conversation away from “trend-talk” and, instead, showed how designers willing to apply their unique powers of influence and communications will undoubtedly change-thinking and stimulate positive action. (Lord knows there’s a huge market in our growing national “change needed” sector.)

The AIGA Y-Conference on Sustainability began the conversation shift. And Michael Osborne layered onto it when he spoke about the pro-bono efforts of his San Francisco studio MODSF, and how his team is efficiently directing some of their energy and skills to causes in need of a louder voice. I see a consciousness shift beginning in the new crop of designers – and it’s exciting. Osborne is a kind of design pragmatist, willing to share his abilities with as many as he can, rather than insisting they always go to the highest bidder. It’s a Target-like, egalitarian approach. In fact, his currency seems to be highest-need rather than fattest-wallet. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s an astute business man, creating the success that can fund the causes of choice.

The “shift” happens when the talented designer recognizes their most valuable currency is in their ability to reach people, to communicate. Michael Osborne and Free Range Studios are examples of studios changing the design dialog by shifting their intentions.

Learn about Michael Osborne at www.modsf.com/ Visit Free Range Studios at www.freerangestudios.com/