The cover, the creative director of Sole 24 Ore explains the design

Interpreting the Salone del Mobile today means confronting something that goes beyond the simple representation of design. It means translating visually a complex system, made up of global visions and connections. This challenge gave rise to the contest promoted with the students of Mimaster - Fondazione Arnoldo e Alberto Mondadori, who were asked to imagine a cover capable of narrating, with a single image, the contemporary sense of design. The proposals received by the editorial office returned an articulated look. On the one hand, a more figurative narrative, linked to the city and the everyday dimension of design; on the other, a more abstract research, oriented towards representing the Salone as a system, a network, a cultural infrastructure. In between, a third way: that of human experience, where objects and people construct the landscape of living.

Allegra Mussato's winning cover holds these levels together with a simple and effective image. The iconic red Metro, designed by Franco Albini with Franca Helg and Antonio Piva in the 1960s, becomes a narrative device: not just a means of transport, but a place of crossing and connection. Inside, fragments of design flow like moving visions, conveying the idea of a dynamic system.

Bianca D’Ascanio/MiMaster - Faam

The illustration works by subtraction and synthesis, maintaining a strong readability. The rhythm of the windows, the modular scansion and the use of colour build a composition that dialogues with the editorial language without renouncing an authorial dimension. The result is a cover that does not describe the Salone, but interprets it as the flow and experience of an urban tale.

The MiMaster students' project demonstrates the ability to translate a complex theme into an effective image. An exercise that is not only didactic, but fully editorial: turning complexity into image, and image into thought.