Symetria et Proportione
Visual Identity
I designed the Logo and the Iconographic System of AR.CO. Engineering srl – an Italian engineering company headquartered in Senigallia (AN) Italy.
A logo built starting from a reinterpretation of the compositional criterion (from lat. canon -ŏnis, gr. κανών -όνος) of fifteenth-century technical literature, in particular of Italian historical engineering, from the Tractatus Primus (De Ingegneria, about 1480) by Francesco di Giorgio Martini to the architectural works of Baccio Pontelli and Luciano Laurana (the Senigallia Fortress) following the semantic track of Bruno Munari’s Archetypal Images and developing Bob Noorda’s concept of Elementary Module.
Abstract AR.CO. Engineering srl communicates the need to renew its logo and its professional and social image. Founded in 1995, the engineering firm has grown to become a company with an international curriculum and now needs to present itself to a much more diverse audience, both geographically and linguistically, for which the message “of continuity and solidity of a long industrial and intellectual tradition is synonymous with reliability and professional guarantee“. To better communicate these values AR.CO. Engineering srl asked for a new Visual Identity, recognizable not only in Italy but also abroad. In the previous version, the logo consisted of the name of the company and the pay-off “Design and Services”. Believing that this is outdated in aesthetic terms, he feels the need for a more modern and appropriate image for the threefold core business within which the Group operates today: Energy, Environment and Telecommunications.
Concept For a multidisciplinary engineering company – specializing in engineering systems design, consulting and supervision services on the construction of buildings, infrastructures and systems – the first step in the design of a new graphic architecture was the comparison with Literature.
In the specific field of historical engineering, we have taken up the laws of harmonic or modular proportion as a graphic model and general theory for the construction of the company logo and iconographic system (Brand Identity + Visual Identity). By studying the conception and formal construction of the architectural systems of the Renaissance engineer Francesco di Giorgio Martini, we have obtained an aesthetic and graphic geometry suitable for our goal.
Francesco di Giorgio Martini Intellectual and engineer from Siena, he has been active in Urbino since 1477 in the service of Captain Federico da Montefeltro. His professional specialization and the main object of his interest is the design of modern technological systems of both civil and military character. In the Tractatus Primus (De Ingegneria, 148o) – testified by the Torinese Saluzziano 148 manuscript and the Laurenziano Ashburnhamiano 361 manuscript – the processes of the conception and design of systems according to mathematical-humanistic symmetry and proportion criteria (“symetria et proportione“).
Pic. 01 
Pic. 02 
Pic. 03
In the Studio di Proporzioni (“Study of Proportion”) he constructs and formulates a system of metric relations reducing the relationship of the parts with the whole to the figure of the Arch, intended and proposed as a basic module for the development of a graphic architecture1, specifically (Pic. 03) the drawing in plan of a Latin cross religious building, with a central area crowned by semicircular exedras.
1 “Questa porzione sarà modulo a tutto l’edificio” (“This core will form the whole building”), Francesco di Giorgio Martini
Starting from this archetypal core, in the Tractatus Primus, from the study of defensive systems, he moves on to the development of ports, bridges and roads, water systems, urban routes, civil, religious and proto-industrial buildings.
Archetypal Images “It is no longer possible to design a symbol without taking into account the pre-existing values of images already sedimented in the collective memory for generations lived in a specific territory” (Bruno Munari)
There are two paths – iconographic and iconological – from which the symbol of AR.CO Engineering srl was born.
1 The construction model of an architectural system designed by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, based on the module of the Circle and the Arch, commonly known as the Studio di proporzioni.
2 The Senigallia Fortress (“Rocca di Senigallia”) symbol of the city where the Engineering Company has its headquarters. The Fortress, built around 1490 by the engineers Luciano Laurana and Baccio Pontelli, is designed taking inspiration – both in plan and in the details – on the form of the circle and the round arch, according to a local Renaissance model founded and theorized by the engineer Francesco di Giorgio Martini.
Elementary Module “The brand must be designed according to a geometric process, through a graphic scheme built with communicable and repeatable logical rules contained in basic forms (modules) elementary (circle, square, triangle). From this module derive all the necessary measures to identify the shape. The measurements are obtained through geometric operations, drawing straight and curved lines that divide the module into equal parts” (Bob Noorda)
Design The new logo takes up the Di Giorgio Martini’s module (Pic. 04) and is reworked as an iconic element. The curve of the arch, abstracted from its context, is reformulated in a new mathematical “module” that forms the new logo of AR.CO. Engineering srl.
Pic. 04
From here – systematically – I have developed the design of the name (Lettering) and the whole coordinated image (Corporate Identity) of the Company.
Reference
• Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Tractatus Primus, 1480 ca. [link]
• A. Meschini, E. Petrucci, Rappresentazione sincronica e ricostruzioni diacroniche della Rocca di Senigallia. Un approccio di conoscenza integrato, International Conference on Modern Age Fortification of the Mediterranean Coast, Torino, 2018 Oct [link]
• Henry Millon, The architectural theory of Francesco di Giorgio, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 40, No. 3, 1958 Sept, pp. 257-261, CAA College Art Association [link]
• AR.CO. INGEGNERIA SRL, Brand Identity & Company Profile, August 2018 [link]
• AR.CO. INGEGNERIA SRL, Website & Social Profiles, August 2018 [link]
• AR.CO. INGEGNERIA SRL, Corporate Video, 24 November 2018 [link]
• AR.CO. INGEGNERIA SRL, Graphic Design of Fano (PU) headquarters, September 2019 [link]
