The language of pictograms: timeless signs, universal archetypes
Since ancient times, people have felt the need to leave a mark in order to tell their own stories. This is how cave paintings came into being. Over time, they were distilled into small symbols and figures defined by an essential, immediate line: pictograms.
Archetypes of primordial communication, pictograms represent an object directly and convey its meaning without the need for words. Through their ability to synthesise and communicate instantly, they form a universal language capable of transcending cultures, languages and time.
“If you draw a fish, everyone understands that it is a fish.” It is in this simplicity that Gabriele Centazzo recognises the power of the pictogram: an essential, shared language that speaks directly to the imagination.
Among the books that most influenced Gabriele Centazzo's thinking is Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Reverie. From this comes the reference to a child's gaze as a privileged form of knowledge and imagination. Just as when a child is asked to draw a person, the pictogram reduces reality to its essence through a few instantly recognisable strokes, capable of evoking universal images and meanings.
The time machine, Valcucine headquarter
Inlaid works by Alfredo De Santis
Introduced into Valcucine's communication in the early 1980s, pictograms became one of the company's most distinctive identity elements. Together with Alfredo De Santis, one of the leading figures in Italian graphic design in the second half of the twentieth century, Gabriele Centazzo developed a coherent and recognisable visual system that would go on to define the brand's image over the years.
Fabula, design by Gabriele Centazzo
Over time, this language has not remained confined to visual communication. It has also found expression in the product itself, becoming part of Valcucine's design vocabulary.
SineTempore, design by Gabriele Centazzo
Even today, Valcucine's pictograms continue to live on across the brand's graphic design and communication, reinterpreted over time yet always faithful to their original nature: timeless signs, capable of expressing ideas, values and emotions with the immediacy of a universal language.
