Design CommissionsDesign Commissions

Luca Napoli devised the graphic design for Thursday Night Live! the lecture and debate programme of Het Nieuwe Instituut.

Luca Napoli conceived the graphic design for _Thursday Night Live!_ as an interface. First, he designed a web cover for the announcements of the lecture and debate programme on Het Nieuwe Instituut's website. Speaking and conversation are central to the activities of Thursday Night Live! Therefore the voice permeates his design. Napoli developed Viz, a chatbot assistant that tells the visitor about upcoming programme events. To do this, Napoli tailored an existing chat programme, so that compilers of Thursday Night Live! can enter the activities via text messages. Viz then communicates the activities to the website visitor.

Napoli's design for the web cover applies a technique for visualising sound. "It's not very common to use sounds when designing a website," he says, "but I find it interesting to visually apply these somewhat outdated techniques." When the visitor moves the cursor over the web cover's image, Viz springs into action. The image is linked to Viz's voice and moves with its volume, giving the impression of the voice appearing. "I like to hack, adapt and combine everyday online tools, such as Google Maps or a chat program, and put these different elements into dialogue in my work," he explains.

In doing so, Napoli transforms a conversation program such as Chatbox into a means of feeding a database. Instead of facilitating a conversation, the chat program updates the Thursday evening programme on the website. Napoli then transforms the visualisation of Viz's voice into solidified visual elements for the Thursday Night Live! posters. He also designed a series of announcements for the Instagram account of the lecture and debate programme. Here, too, the colourful visuals of the web cover return in a fixed form that also partly flows over the letters.

Luca Napoli is a designer and artist working in Amsterdam and Milan. He completed his master's degree at Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem in 2018. He has worked with numerous artists, magazines and institutions, such as Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, Het Hem in Zaandam, Werkplaats Typografie and Dutch Art Institute in Arnhem, Zweikommasieben magazine/Praeses Editionen in Lucerne/Zurich and Superinternet in Milan.