Context and Mission
Sa Die de sa Sardigna is the national day of the Sardinian people, commemorating the popular uprising of April 28, 1794.
It represents a symbolic moment for reflecting on freedom, self-determination, and collective identity, while reconnecting historical memory with contemporary civic life.
Each year, ANS organizes a two-day cultural event to celebrate this anniversary in the urban space of Cagliari, combining commemoration with public celebration. The city becomes a stage for historical reflection, artistic expression, music, craftsmanship, and shared social experiences.
Summary
A cultural and civic celebration that brings historical memory into contemporary urban life.
Starting Point
Sa Die is a historically significant anniversary, but before the project it lacked a coherent visual and experiential systemcapable of making it recognizable as a contemporary public event.
The challenge was not only to commemorate the past, but to reactivate it emotionally and socially, transforming the city into a place of shared memory, participation, and celebration.
Summary
A strong historical foundation in need of a contemporary visual and experiential language.
My Role
From the first edition and over multiple years, I worked in a hybrid role combining design direction and event coordination.
I contributed to defining the strategic objectives of the initiative, shaping its values, identity, and overall vision. I curated the visual system, supervised its applications across urban installations and communication materials, and ensured coherence between design, content, and experience.
Alongside this, I supported the organizational and production aspects of the event, providing tools and guidance for event management and overseeing on-site implementation.
Summary
Design as a guiding framework for both identity and organization.
Design Challenge
The challenge was not simply to design posters or graphics, but to give coherence and recognizability to a distributed urban event.
Sa Die unfolds across multiple symbolic locations in the city, involving institutions, associations, artists, musicians, artisans, and local businesses. The visual system had to coordinate many voices while remaining unified and legible.
Another key challenge was balancing historical commemoration with a festive, social dimension, creating symbols, rituals, and recurring elements capable of being recognized and repeated year after year.
Summary
Making a historical event visible, accessible, and alive in the contemporary city.
DESIGN
Visual Identity System
The visual identity is based on essential, non-illustrative geometric forms, designed to function in public space and dialogue with the city’s architecture without overpowering it.
The system avoids decorative excess, focusing instead on clarity, repetition, and symbolic strength.
Color plays a central role: red, traditionally associated with Sa Die and the Sardinian flag, is not used as a stylistic choice but as a structural device. It becomes a visual marker of presence, continuity, and recognition, capable of unifying diverse interventions across the city.
The system is modular and adaptable, allowing the identity to evolve across formats, spaces, and editions while maintaining coherence. Each edition becomes a variation on the same visual structure rather than a new project.
Summary
A modular visual system designed to occupy urban space and endure over time.
Event as an Extension of Design
The event itself functions as an extension of the visual system.
Urban installations, flags, panels, cubes, and lighting elements—often using simple, easily transportable modules—transform streets and squares into recognizable spaces of celebration and memory.
These are not merely logistical or organizational choices, but design decisions: ways of visually “occupying” the city and making the event immediately readable and shareable.
Summary
Design becomes space, movement, and collective experience.
Evolution Over Time
Over the years, the project has evolved while maintaining its core identity.
What has remained constant is the presence in the streets and the balance between commemoration and celebration. What has changed is the scale and structure: fewer but more curated activities, stronger collaborations with cultural associations and local venues, and increasingly refined installations and programming.
Summary
An identity that matures without losing coherence.
Impact
Sa Die de sa Sardigna has progressively become a recognizable and anticipated annual event.
Public participation has increased, both in commemorative moments and in festive activities. Traditional Sardinian dance—rarely practiced spontaneously in the capital—has unexpectedly involved passersby, drawn in by live musicians positioned in high-traffic pedestrian areas.
Media attention, institutional interest, and community engagement have all grown over time, reinforcing the event’s cultural and social relevance.
Summary
A civic ritual that strengthens collective identity through design.
Takeaway
In Sa Die de sa Sardigna, design is not an accessory layer but the matrix of the project:
a system that makes history visible in the present, transforms urban space into shared memory, and allows the event to be recognizable, inhabitable, and repeatable over time.
A cultural and civic celebration that brings historical memory into contemporary urban life
A strong historical foundation in need of a contemporary visual and experiential language and design as a guiding framework for both identity and organization
A civic ritual that strengthens collective identity through design, a modular visual system designed to occupy urban space and endure over time, making a historical event visible, accessible, and alive in the contemporary city
