If I had to sum up what I do in one sentence, I would say this: designing is the best way, that I know of, to organize things. I view communication design as a process of continuous research, based on the method as much as on creativity, to design content that serves people who use it.
Since 2013 I have been the creative director at Ida Studio, a communication design studio that bases its work on interdisciplinarity and contamination between different skills, constantly looking for new visual approaches.
Since 2018 I have been a lecturer at the University of Ferrara in the architecture and design department.
Summary profile
Laura Bortoloni, born in Rovigo (Italy), 1980. is a visual communication designer, graphic facilitator, lecturer, artist and printmaker.
From 2003 to 2013 she collaborated with important Italian studios, including Studio Paolo Bazzani in Milan, and Bcpt Associati – Co.Mo.Do. in Perugia, participating in 2011 in the EU Erasmus for New Entrepreneur programme working with Creando in Santander. She subsequently co-founded Ida Studio. Selected several times for the ADI Design Index and the AWDA Women in Design Awards, she has twice won Gold at the European Design Awards (2017, 2023).
She has held lectures, seminars and taught graphic design in various public and private institutions in Italy and abroad, including University of Ferrara from 2018 to 2023, University of Udine, Ecole nationale supérieure des arts visuel de La Cambre, Brussels (Belgium).
A member of AIAP Associazione Italiana Design della Comunicazione Visiva, she was its vice-president from 2019 to 2021, dealing among other activities with international relations and the curatorship of the ‘Urban Dataviz Contest’ project.
She is also active as an artist and printmaker, specialising in the mokuhanga technique (Japanese woodcut); she has participated in residencies in Japan and Switzerland. Her prints have been exhibited in Bristol (UK), Canton (USA), Basel (Switzerland), Nara (Japan).
She graduated in 2005 from ISIA in Urbino with a dissertation on Gregorian chant and symbols in medieval music with highest honours. In 2009, she obtained, again with honours, an MA at the ISIA Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche, Faenza. She continued her education with the Advanced Training Course in type design – POLI.Design (2008), and with the University Master’s Degree in Journalism and Science Communication University of Ferrara (2012). She is currently a student at the Doctoral School of the Faculty of Humanities at the same university.
Projects
Ida Studio
A communication design studio. I am co-founder and creative director
Print no border
Print and storytelling project on border narratives
Do you know me?
My workshop that talks about the representation of our (professional?) identity
Pillole di futuro
A storytelling format conceived by Marketing Arena and Identity Atlas; I have been collaborating on the project since 2013
Non résumé
Interactive documentary reflecting on non-linear career paths