Ribaltimora: transforming Genoa's forgotten park into a creative community hub
Year
2022
What we made
Branding
Wayfinding
Offline Campaign
University Project
Talent Garden
Università di Genova
Awards
Jury award
Overview
Giardini Baltimora sits in the heart of Genoa but remains underused and poorly regarded by locals; despite its central location, the park suffers from hidden, unmarked entrances and a reputation for neglect. With planned developments including a café, exhibition space, and coworking facilities in adjacent buildings, the site needed a complete image transformation.
We developed a bold rebranding, wayfinding, and campaign to challenge existing perceptions, communicate upcoming changes, and make the park accessible and inviting to a broad audience.
Challenge
Survey research revealed that most people avoid the park because they perceive it as degraded and uninteresting. The challenge was to dismantle this image and replace it with something recognizable and compelling, communicating the transformation not as minor improvements but as a genuine revolution. The project needed to spark curiosity and invite diverse audiences to rediscover the space.
Target
Approach
The rebrand centers on “ri-baltimora”, a name that evokes rebirth (rinascita), references the verb ribaltare (to overturn, especially perspectives), and playfully recalls summer fruit (mora). The visual language is stimulating, unconventional, bold, and visionary, built around creativity, movement, and expressivity.
The graphic system combines photography and illustration.
Photos of surrounding buildings are cut out, processed with black-and-white filters, then overlaid with colored filters. Illustrations transform buildings into animated characters using bold color fields completed with thin black linework.
The signature element are ribbon hands, that become the project’s distinctive visual marker. They appear across all touchpoints and adapt to context: institutional events use neutral subjects and blue tones, while concerts and nightlife shift to violet, cyan, and fuchsia palettes.
Guerrilla interventions make entrances impossible to miss, where the hands indicate the entrances.
