The Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea (MuFoCo), Italy’s first public museum dedicated entirely to photography, opened in 2004 in the seventeenth-century Villa Ghirlanda in Cinisello Balsamo, near Milan.[1] In October 2025, the institution was transformed into the Museo Nazionale di Fotografia (MUNAF), a national museum foundation promoted by the Ministry of Culture together with the Metropolitan City of Milan and the Municipality of Cinisello Balsamo.[1]
Design and History
The museum’s logo was selected through a national competition open to creative professionals under 35, announced in August 2003.[2] The competition brief called for a mark/logotype that would identify the museum across all its communication activities.[3]
On 9 November 2003, the winning design was presented at Villa Ghirlanda. Cristiano Bottino, a designer at studio FM Milano, took first prize with a project jokingly titled “Pina Forever.”[4] The jury included photographer Gabriele Basilico, designer Giovanni Baule, and journalist Gianluigi Colin, among others.[5] Two special mentions went to Roberto Timperi and to the Milan-based group Afterpixel.[4]
Bottino, who is a co-founder and director of studio FM Milano, also handled art direction and graphic design for the museum’s early communications.[6] The studio continues to work with the institution, producing editorial projects for MUNAF as recently as 2026.[7]
Meaning and Symbolism
Documented descriptions of the winning logo’s visual form are limited. The competition was judged on the strength of the submitted proposals, and the museum’s own materials describe the institution’s focus on technological transformations in photography and its relationship with other expressive disciplines.[8]
Typography and Design
The design is attributed to Cristiano Bottino of studio FM Milano, who won the 2003 competition.[4]
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