Associazione per il Disegno Industriale
(established 1956)
ADI, the Association for Industrial Design, has exerted a powerful voice in the promotion of the design profession in Italy for almost half a century, a period in which Italian design has enjoyed a significant international reputation for style, iconoclasm, and innovation. The organization has brought together a wide range of professionals in the promotion of design including designers, publishers, researchers, academics, critics, and journalists. It has also sought to foster recognition of the social, economic, and cultural significance of design and to act as a persuasive intermediary between the worlds of design and business. Since 1962 ADI has also managed the prestigious Compasso d'Oro design award scheme (established in 1954 through La Rinascente department store), the longest established and most important industrial design award in Italy. Four decades later, in 2001, ADI updated the competition's rules and regulations relating to selection and participation, including the opportunity for qualifying products to be given the ADI Design Index Quality Award and to be published in the annual publication, the ADI Design Index. Manufacturers are also able to use the Quality Award in publicity and advertising. Also in 2001 the Fondazione ADI per il Disegno Industriale (the ADI Foundation for Italian Industrial Design) was established with the aim of promoting the historic patrimony of Italian design and its future possibilities, whether in terms of culture, research, publishing, or funding.
ADI's activities devolve around three major departments: designers, enterprises, and general affairs, with regional hubs in Pesaro, Udine, Turin, Verona, and Rome. There are also focus groups that centre on design for disability and computing for design. The organization is represented on the Consiglio Nazionale dell'Economia e dei Lavoro (the National Economic and Labour Council) and works closely with Confidustria (the Confederation of Italian Industry). It was also a founding member of ICSID (the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, established in 1957), of BEDA (Bureau of European Design Associations), and is a member of ICOGRADA (the International Council of Graphic Design Associations, established 1963).
