Flicking through the pages of this book, selected by Bob Noorda and illustrated with an extensive critical essay by Jole de Sanna, the reader sees the unfolding of an almost complete panorama of that which was the evolution of Italian graphics from 1872 to 1972.

Over half a thousand illustrations which reveal a line of development which is not just that of a company which advertises its products but of a country and its visual culture. From the adverts for the first tyres for velocipedes to the sophisticated projects of the Fifties and Sixties, it is the standard of quality which guides Pirelli communication.

Pirelli advertising moreover involves names of the calibre of Carboni, Savignac, Castellani, Munari, Armando Testa, Manzi, Engelmann, Noorda himself, Tovaglia and Fletcher: “the graphic design Olympus of that time” (Gillo Dorfles).

1872-1972 Cento anni di comunicazione visiva Pirelli
Edited by Bob Noorda and Vanni Scheiwiller
Libri Scheiwiller, Milano 1990.