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Paolo Palma was born in 1973 and took his diploma at the ISIA school in Urbino. After spending a couple of years working with Dolcini Associates in Pesaro, he joined Fabrica in 1999. In 2006 he was a founder member of the Heads Collective, which he has since served as art director.

In which area of graphic design and visual communication do feel most at your ease?
Although I am passionately interested in typography, I work with graphic design in general. I have always had a “geometric vocation”, as I enjoy drawing in terms of structures and rationalised spaces. My favourite fields of work are communicating about cultural events, publishing and corporate identities for authorities and firms. I also believe that poster design is one of the greatest expressions for a graphic designer. Three of my posters were chosen for the 2010 edition of the International Poster and Graphic Design festival in Chaumont.

What structure does Heads have and how do you go about developing projects inside the group?
The Heads Collective’s name itself already tells you about its intentions: the first thing it says is that heads, ideas and thoughts are important, although they should never be separated from the actual execution and technical production. Heads is a collective of creatives with a variety of experiences and cultural backgrounds that researches and develops interdisciplinary projects featuring input from graphics, design, video, illustration, photography and music. The idea of the collective comes across as a central nucleus with a variety of creatives and experts who share the same vision orbiting around it. The studio brings different areas of experience together, so as to be able to tackle all the aspects of communications, including strategy, events and the media. Our work combines styles, formats and methods to present new approaches to contents, to forms and to channels of communication for projects whose values are intellectual honesty, responsibility and beauty. Heads’ activities include promoting new social and cultural projects.

Tell us about the pros and cons…
Our work is triggered by a variety of different aptitudes and skills, but always brought together by discussion and comparison and never subjected to the force of one individual’s isolated personal creativity. Our method is to go at things in a workshop, a collective approach of work in progress, where ideas and people nourish each other and benefit by growing. Of course, that means that we do not follow the straightest and economically most advantageous route to our destination, but follow one that includes the possibility of making mistakes. But that helps us gain awareness of our “trade”, ensuring that we do not simply make do, but find positive stimuli in all the kinds of work we are involved in.

What role do you play in the collective?
My role is that of art director, which in practice means that I work in close contact with the graphic designers, trying to get the best performance from everyone, mixing the various influences and supervising the result, so that we achieve a certain standard. This calls for considerable commitment, which you can only get from passion and dedication to what is not only a job, but an aesthetic approach to things and one of balance with the various members of the studio.



info@paolopalma.com

www.paolopalma.com

www.headscollective.com