Giacomo Sardini | 1750–1811

Context

Paolo Bertoncini Sabatini and Paola Betti asked me to design the book and cover for “Giacomo Sardini | 1750–1811,” a volume that had been “under construction” for nearly 25 years. Dimensions and page count — 256 pages — were already fixed by the editor. The real challenge was filling them harmoniously with text alongside large, wonderful pictures of architecture, paintings and unpublished drawings, giving them all the room they deserve.

Solution

I chose Grilli Type’s GT Super as the body font, then defined a baseline grid and font size to fill the 256 pages around it. The layout runs on a 10-column, 4-row grid flexible enough that text and images flow without ever forcing a picture into a specific place or dimension — every picture, drawing and painting keeps its original ratio.

Each chapter — Introduction, the Life, the Architecture, the Collectionism, Appendix, Apparatuses — has its own color, helping readers orient themselves through the book and doubling as a full-background layer that Giacomo’s original drawings lean gently onto, imitating a museum showcase. The accent color throughout is a bright, warm orange, aiming for a book as exciting to browse as Giacomo’s own life was a bright happening in Lucca and Tuscany’s history.