Studio Del Frate is an Italian design and creative brand whose mark was originally designed by Walter Del Frate in 1968. The logo is a circular emblem, a format Del Frate also applied to other brand identities he created during his career.[1]
Design and History
Walter Del Frate (1926–2011) was an Italian painter and graphic designer. Born in Pola, he moved to Milan, where he devoted himself to painting, drawing and lithography before entering the advertising world.[2] In his graphic studio he designed logos for several companies, including ILLVA, Saffa Cartiera, Gin-Marke-Illva and Tecnizoo.[2]
Beyond logo work, Del Frate was a prolific creator of advertising posters. His posters are catalogued in the Italian Cultural Heritage Catalogue, and a collection of them is preserved at the Museo Nazionale Collezione Nando Salce in Treviso.[2] In 1967 he exhibited at the “Today’s Italian Publicity and Graphic Design” show organized in London by Franco Grignani at Reed House in Piccadilly Circus.[2]
Del Frate also contributed to the Italian graphic design community through the AIAP (Associazione italiana Artisti e Grafici Pubblicitari). He designed the cover and graphic layout of Poliedro, the association’s bulletin, for the 1969 issue, working alongside Dainesi.[3]
Meaning and Symbolism
The Studio Del Frate mark uses a circular shape, a format consistent with several other logos Del Frate designed, including the ILLVA distillery emblem from 1963.[4] The circle format appears repeatedly across his identity work, though no documented explanation of the Studio Del Frate mark’s specific symbolism has been published.
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