Kerning Conference

How did you name your practice and what does the name represent to you?

My nickname has always been “piac”. It’s an abbreviation of my surname, Piacenza. My friends always called me like that. When I started as a designer I decided to add an article in front of that nickname, so changing it to “ilpiac”. “Il” does mean in fact, “the”. Why? Because in Milan, where I’ve been living for more than 20 years now, people usually add an article before first names! They don’t usually tell “per favore chiama Chloe”, but “per favore chiama LA Chloe” :) It’s like you would say in English “please call THE Chloe” and not “please call Chloe”. Funny, isn’t it? So this is why online I’m “ilpiac”!

Talk us through a typical working day include for you right now.

I don’t have a typical working day. It depends on what projects I’m working on at the moment and what’s going on in my family. I usually stand up at 6 AM. I then prepare breakfast for my family and after breakfast, we go to school. I mean, Leonardo — our son — goes to school ;) I bring him to school, then I come back home. I work from home or at co-working places, it depends. I don’t have an office any more, and I don't need it in fact. I changed the way I work 6 years ago when our life changed after our son Leonardo was diagnosed with drug-resistant epilepsy. It’s easier for me being able to change the place I work at without having a proper office. Since then, I try to balance family and work in a more effective way. And I try to use what I know about communications design to develop projects that can have a positive social impact.

Any passion projects/collabs you would like to share?

Kerning, of course! Kerning is a conference that started in 2013. I was not part of the group who organized the first edition, but I designed the notebook for the conference that we printed in letterpress. I’m passionate about letterpress and type in fact. I attended the conference of course, and I then started to collaborate with them. I’m now part of the group and I try to help Francesco, Enrico and Beatrice to organize Kerning. We’ll have a great line-up of speakers in June so I really suggest everybody to hurry-up and buy a ticket before it’s too late! The conference will take place in Faenza, as usual. It’s a wonderful mix you can’t miss: a cozy place, a great line-up made of international speakers, sunny days, food & drinks. What do you want more?

Who’s on the team, what are their roles and why do you love them?

If we talk about my job, I’m a freelance designer so I mainly work alone. Or with different teams, it depends on the project. But I would like to talk some more about the team that organizes Kerning conference! Francesco, Enrico and Beatrice were among the main organizers also for the first edition of Kerning. It’s funny to work with them. It’s not that easy, you know, to organize an international conference but they succeed in keeping Kerning alive. This will be the 7th edition, and I think that 7 years are a great milestone for a small conference. We don’t have in fact a big budget and big sponsors, but we always tried to offer an interesting line-up of speakers, with some workshops — from letterpress printing to designing typefaces, through calligraphy — during the two days before the conference.