Rome is the subject.
New York City is the classroom.
Rome Through Design: NYC is a semester-long communication design program I developed to explore Rome through New York City—from ancient art and architecture to contemporary fashion, design, food, and publishing.
The program connects Iconic Rome × Living Design Rome × NYC. Students explore how Rome communicated power, belief, identity, and public life—and how later generations interpreted its visual ideas. Rome is the starting point. Selected examples from Lazio and broader Italy extend the study into the design students encounter every day.
Students investigate imperial portraits and mosaics at the Met, triumphal arches at Washington Square and Grand Army Plaza, Renaissance architecture at Villard Houses, and Rome’s printed history at the Morgan Library. Contemporary examples include Roman food and packaging at Trapizzino, books and publishing at Rizzoli, furniture and products at Kartell, lighting at Artemide, paper at Pineider, jewelry and identity at Bulgari, and typography and wayfinding in the New York City subway.
Across fifteen weeks, ten professor-led field investigations connect firsthand observation with studio work. Students photograph, sketch, compare, and research their discoveries in a personal Grand Tour Journal. Il Mio Giro adds an independent investigation based on each student’s interests, while short Roma NYC Pop-Ups introduce focused cultural and design encounters along the field routes. Students turn their research into four original design projects: an illustrated case study, a graphic interpretation, a Rome–NYC visual mashup, and a multipage zine.
I developed Rome Through Design: NYC from more than ten years teaching communication design, typography, design history, and design theory, and approximately thirty years of New York City–based creative work. That experience includes publishing, United Nations public-information design, the international Type Talks lecture series, and Italy–U.S. professional work with the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce and Italian cultural and trade organizations.
