Food design, car design, bio design, design in communications, web design, geo design – design is everywhere, everything is design, but some things are more design than others. In this creative space Italy can boast a firmly-established tradition and a reputation for quality that has become an international benchmark. This is a book about objects. Irrespective of whether design emerges during the project or the process, at the drawing table or in the conceptual phase, whether it is made of steel or marble or industrial waste, organic material or plastic, using analogic or new digital techniques, Chiara Alessi writes on objects because they are Italian design’s most interesting and numerically significant expression. In this highly original panorama Alessi introduces us to: the main facts or how modern design conquered new spaces after the great masters of the 1970s (Ettore Sottsass, Vico Magistretti and Enzo Mari) and the successive generations, which were obscured by international protagonists such as Philippe Starck; the main venues or the most significant emerging businesses and schools, but above all the networks for spreading ideas and distributing products through virtual channels. Then there are the novel and alternative methods for planning, producing and distributing, such as the latest tendency towards self-production, where the designer is both the thinker and – unlike in the past – the maker, distributor and promoter of products. And, above all, there are the names of the protagonists of this young Italian story: over 200 designers, most of them under 30 years of age. The book features a preface by Alessandro Mendini, one of Italy’s greatest designers.