Maria Angela Di Pierro Losi
designer culturale / Docente IED / founder Mostro graphic design camp
Maria Angela Di Pierro, Meme, Apulian by origin, Milanese by birth (30 October 1973), lives and works between Milan and Copenhagen. www.memeconsulting.it
After a degree in Modern Literature in Pavia (History and Criticism of Cinema), a Master in Business Communication at the Business School of Il Sole24 Ore in Milan and one at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan (ALTIS, high school business and society) on the Management of ONP (non-profit organizations) has been dealing with External Relations since 1996, organization of events and exhibitions in the field of design, promotion of the Culture of the project and since 2008 the protection and promotion of the profession of “Designer” specifically of young new graduates with activities of promotion, talent scouting and recruting. She is a freelance journalist registered with the Order of Journalists of Milan, from 1993 to 1998 she was a correspondent from Milan for the design sector of various local newspapers and portals in Bari and its province (Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno). From 1996 to 2002 she worked as an exhibition organizer and relationship with the press, at the gallery of Design, Eclectica in Milan with Teresa Ginori Conti. She then gained 12 years of experience as a communication and external relations account in the large international communication networks (Fleishman Hillard) in the design divisions, coming increasingly into contact with the world of the trade press, influencers and stakeholders, companies and large architectural, engineering and design studios.
From 2009 to 2016 she was Director General of Aiap, the Italian Association of Design for Visual Communication, an experience that allowed her to associate the management of External Relations with the management of non-profit organizations and to develop new managerial skills (organizational, legal and fiscal aspects, human resources and budget management and coordination from 2009 to 2015 of “AiapDesignPer, la Settimana Internazionale della Grafica”, a weekly travelling event for Italian cities). Through this experience he matures an in-depth knowledge of the History of Graphic Design, studying as a self-taught.
Since 2016 she has coined and taught at the European Institute of Design, IED, Milan, the discipline of “job approaching”, a new form of vocational guidance, a compulsory course for all second classes, for students in the disciplines of Design.
Since 2014 she has been dealing with cultural intermediation with the Scandinavian Peninsula, coming into contact with more than thirty realities, companies and design studios located between Denmark and Sweden. Since 2016 she has been collaborating with the Italian Embassy in Copenhagen and the Italian Cultural Institute, promoting the culture of Italian graphic design. In collaboration with the Institute, in January 2017 he promoted and coordinated the organization of the Aiap Exhibition, “La Grafica del Made Italy, 1950/1980” in Cura di Mario Piazza and the subsequent first edition of ITALIAN DESIGN DAY (March 2017); in 2018 he again collaborated with the IIC for the project “Residenza d’artista” (Artist’s residence), which this year saw the participation and promotion of a young Italian graphic designer abroad, carrying out general coordination activities, as a juror for the choice of the candidate (Francesco Barbaro) and organizing the exhibition “Daily act, visual communication and new behaviors” for the second edition of IDD.
In 2019 she was elected among the “100 Ambassadors of Italian Design in the World” by the Ministry of International Cooperation, as Ambassador of Italian Design in Copenhagen for the third edition of the Italian Design Day, IDD2019, a day promoted by the Ministry and ADI, Industrial Design Association; for the occasion she organized an exhibition and a conference entitled “Milan for Mobility”.
In 2017, together with Marco Sammicheli and Marco William Fagioli, she founded and curated MOSTRO, a graphic design Camp in collaboration with Fondazione Mondadori (Laboratorio Formentini per l’Editoria), Viscom, the Fiera della Comunicazione visiva in Milan and Gruppo Cordenons Spa; Mostro is a generalist festival dedicated to the graphic arts, design and visual communication, whose mission is to give visibility to deserving young designers, to culturally mediate, inviting foreign designers, graphic designers and illustrators to Italy and to take young Italians abroad. This year it will reach its third edition in 2019 from 9 to 13 October. http://mostro.design.
In September 2019 it will inaugurate “Meme Gallery”, a mini show room gallery in Milan in the Brera design district, a small but precious space dedicated to designers, craftsmen, artists, photographers and unpublished designers who deal with micro-productions.