RAI Radio Italiana, the Italian public broadcasting company, traces its visual identity back to the late 1940s, when architect and painter Erberto Carboni created the broadcaster’s first official mark. Carboni, described by RAI as a leading figure in Italian post-war advertising graphics, designed the logo with squared letters and a dot on the “i” in 1949, before adding a separate “TV” logo in 1953.[1]
Design and History
The first RAI logo was designed in 1948 by Erberto Carboni, characterized by strongly square letters and an accentuated use of orthogonal lines, following the graphic trends of the time.[2] RAI’s own account dates the first mark to 1949, describing it as having squared letters and a dot on the “i.”[1] The logo used an Egyptian typeface, a squat, blocky font with thick, squared letters that formed a single block.[3]
In 1953, Carboni added a “TV” logo featuring a grey “T” above a white “V” on a black base, with the two letters representing an antenna.[1][4] Carboni also designed the RAI test card, broadcast from 1954 to 1977, and the opening and closing television sequences used from 1954 to 1986.[1]
At the start of the 1970s, RAI’s in-house graphic designer Alberto Ribera created a new logo with a thick, soft, rounded typeface in which the “r” seemed to blend into the “a.” This logo was used sparingly, mainly on studio cameras, and was never adopted as an official mark.[3][4] A lowercase version of Carboni’s logo also appeared at the end of the 1970s but was never officially adopted.[3]
In 1982, RAI commissioned the external agency Ara to design a new logo. The uppercase lettering was rounded and joined at the bottom of each character to form a single block, using the Handel Gothic typeface. The three channels, renamed RaiUno, RaiDue and RaiTre, were distinguished by colors and geometric elements: a blue sphere, a red cube and a green tetrahedron.[3][4]
In 1988, designer Giorgio Macchi redesigned the logo, separating the letters and giving them sharp corners. Some versions featured a small Italian flag inside the letter “A.”[3][4]
In 2000, the RAI logo underwent a radical overhaul. Designed by brand designer Antonio Romano, the new logo featured a butterfly whose wings also revealed the profiles of two faces looking at each other. The font used was Paul Renner’s Futura.[3][4]
In 2010, coinciding with the transition to digital terrestrial television, RAI replaced the butterfly with a square-shaped logo. The blue color remained unchanged.[3][4]
Meaning and Symbolism
In one version of Carboni’s original logo, the dot of the “I” formed the pupil of a wide-open eye, a graphic device also used by CBS in America and BBC in England. When Carboni later removed the eyelids, he maintained the dimensions of the dot, leaving the eye implied rather than explicit.[5][4]
For the 2000 butterfly logo, the blue was a reference to technology, the butterfly represented creativity, and the two faces symbolized interactivity.[3][4]
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