DIGITAL PUBLISHING FOR URBAN SPACE AND LOCAL IDENTITIES. DIDACTIC METHOD AND EXPERIMENTAL PROJECTS

This paper presents the didactic method applied to design experimental format of digital publishing for urban spaces. We present didactic projects developed by students of Master Degree course in Communication Design (Politecnico di Milano).
The aim of our course is to provide to the students a method to design communication devices and systems capable of representing the different aspects linked to city identities (physical, social, cultural, emotional aspects).

The first part of paper will presents the evolution of publishing format through the example of the neighborhood newspapers and magazines: starting from the old paper models to the new digital forms.

This part is useful for introduce our didactic method and, as experimental results, the prototypes designed by the students. In fact the paper shows the different design phases related to the development of editorial formats for tablet.
The didactic method presents, from the choice of the urban contents up to the visual representation of them, how we can design tools and experiment new languages for digital publishing.

So the tablet becomes the container and media of neighborhood magazines allowing new possibilities of city storytelling and places representations.
The formats were applied in different zone of Milan. In particular we chose, as areas, several Nuclei di identità locale (NIL), local identity units identified by the urban sociology studies. The NIL wants to represents the new urban multipolarity and the need to re-evaluate the neighborhood identity.

The students' projects show how the contents related to each area can be presented through new experimental languages applied to digital publishing offering new possibilities of places representation and text consultation.