The Creative Journey Behind ‘The House in the Castle’
I am happy to present the new logo of La Casa nel Castello. It is an artistic and ‘pictorial’ reinterpretation of the tile that is outside the door of the house Il Giardino Segreto, created by La Cocciaia years ago based on an idea of my son, who was very young at the time, who called this new house of ours Casa nel Castello. In Suvereto there is not a real castle in the classic sense of the term, but a fortress and the medieval walls surround the entire village. Compared to Florence, where we live, it is certainly a much more intimate and ‘medieval’ dimension. Hence the name, which then stuck!
If you have been following me for a while, you know that this house has always been the one and only ‘house in the castle’, but soon it will no longer be like that, since from September a new house will become part of the #suveretoexperience family. The new house will be online starting from September 21st but nothing will change in the name of the site and the ‘brand’ that includes them both.
We entrusted the creation of this pictorial logo to Fernanda, from Panico Botanico, who, in addition to the graphic version, hand-made a wooden stamp with this same design.
These are Fernanda’s words:
Creating a logo is always an interesting adventure, which involves not only technical skills, but first of all emotional skills. The logo is the symbol of a business, but when we talk about small businesses it becomes a condensation of intimate and heartfelt meanings, which must deeply reflect not only the business, but also the inner worlds of those who created it and carry it forward with dedication. And it is in this intimacy that I find myself entering when I create a logo, with delicacy and empathy, while always keeping an eye on the technical needs.
For the logo of “La casa nel castello” Diana and Gabriele asked me to take inspiration from a beautiful ceramic tile that they had already adopted as their symbol. The challenge here was to convey the atmosphere of that work with a completely different technique (digital illustration), which would lend itself well to the modern use that a logo necessarily has to perform.
I decided to stay as faithful as possible to the tile design and to use the blue tones that characterize the ceramic. To convey the depth of the landscape I played with increasingly lighter shades, as if they were the glazes of a Renaissance painting. In this way the flat colors of the digital design can deceive the eye, recalling the degrading of the gentle Tuscan hills.
The second challenge of this logo was to convert it into a stamp through the technique of rubber embossing. New technique, new language, new translation. And as in every translation, the need to be very careful not to distort the message and its tone.
Since engraving is my favorite technique, this step becomes increasingly fluid, but it is interesting to place the stamp next to the original tile and ask yourself: have I respected that original intimate message?
Ceramics, digital illustration, engraving. Three distant worlds, three different languages, a single voice, which speaks of landscapes in which the gaze can get lost, of simplicity, of quiet and of a place where you can feel at home.
