Geometry and Graphics for the Graphic Identity of a Conference on Gometry and Graphics: about the ICGG2018 Conference Logo

Starting with the organizing of The 18th International Conference on Geometry and Graphics, soon, the feeling of a need for a dedication arose, together with the need for a certain visual identity of the Conference. These have been the two levers inspiring the design of the ICGG2018 Conference Logo, as represented in Figure 1. In order to refer to the present digital character of Geometry and Graphics, a further input was assumed, that the Logo could be generated from a digital three-dimensional object. At the end, as the Logo tries to synthesize, we would like to propose a double dedication for the Conference, to Leonardo Da Vinci, after whom our Campus is named and to whom we would pay homage as a genius among the greatest showing the widest power of Geometry and Graphics in investigation and creativity between Science and Art, and to Giulio Natta, professor at the Politecnico di Milano and Nobel prize in Chemistry in 1963 - together with Karl Ziegler -, as a mentor of the profound function - and beauty! - of Geometry and Graphics in Science and Technology, even at the invisible scale of the molecular world. Consequently, in the graphic synthesis, starting from a spatial version of Leonardo’s homo ad circulum diagram, the sphere (symbolizing the macro cosmos) appears covered by a molecular pattern, inspired by the Natta’s patterns of the isotactic and syndiotactic polypropylene, and inscribed inside an ideally cubic frame (symbolizing the micro cosmos), with the outline of the homo (the man) meeting the two mentioned structures at the base, where the first carbon atom of the chain is located, metaphorically representing the basic brick of organic life, while from the designated viewpoint, located at the base level and looking upwards, the overall outline of the linear frame would allude to the letter “M”, the first letter of the word Milan. According to the extension of the molecular chain, the distribution of atoms was parametrically regulated in order to have several densities in the pattern on the spherical surface. Furthermore, from the digital model, various objects could be physically fabricated, for instance, a totem at human scale, or small templates and the Conference souvenir (Figure 2), while the image of the Logo always reappears looking at those objects from the designated viewpoint. The concept and design are by Author, intending to do this as the ICGG2018 executive chair, parametric modelling and animations by Matteo Cavaglià, master student in Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano, digital branding by Umberto Tolino and Andrea Manciaracina, researchers at the Department of Design of the Politecnico di Milano, who also developed the Conference website www.icgg2018.polimi.it. Further details are presented and discussed in the final contribution. The dedication and Logo aim at remarking the wide spectrum of the scientific focus of the Conference as well as the identity of this 18th edition, which celebrates the 40th anniversary from the first meeting held in 1978 at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. At that time the title was International Conference on Descriptive Geometry (ICDG); the subsequent denominations, that is, International Conference on Engineering Computer Graphics and Descriptive Geometry (ICECGDG, from 1984 to 1988), and International Conference on Geometry and Graphics (ICGG, since 2000) respond to the wish to be in step with the times, respectively, in relation to the revolutionary and pervasive diffusion of the digital as well as to its links with the classical knowledge, and in accordance with the present widening thematics characterizing research, applications, and education in the field of Geometry and Graphics.