Salesian Didactics: A Pedagogical Model for the Training of the Italian Graphic Designer

This essay explores the contribution of the Salesian Typographic School to the formation of the graphic design profession in post-war Italy, a period in which the identity of the graphic designer took shape, establishing the discipline’s existence and its autonomy. The article seeks to show how Giuseppe Pellitteri, as a theorist, and the vocational typography courses offered by the Salesian schools played a crucial role, first in Piedmont and later throughout Italy, in fostering a design culture that diverges from the one traditionally recounted by canonical Italian historiography. This alternative cultural and productive sphere was defined by a different kind of practitioner, the tipo-grafico, and by everyday communication artefacts not necessarily linked to the celebrated masters of Italian graphic design or to the visual output of major national industries. This historical reconstruction aims to shed light on underexplored developments and to introduce new interpretive strands that challenge long-standing cultural taboos, including those concerning the relationship between graphic culture and religion.