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ABOUT ME

Cultural project designer, event organiser and author. Since 1980.

Forty-five years working with images, words and territories. At eighteen, together with Stefano Salvemini, I founded  la Editrice L'Immagine  in Molfetta (ba) Italy. We never left. What I do can be told in five ways. Projects in territorial and cultural tourism marketing for anyone who wants to promote a place. Cultural Events and exhibitions, around ten in recent years.  Books on Apulian folk traditions: the latest, Pugliautentica, came out in 2022. The Exhibitions where I show my own photography, starting with La Via di Gerusalemme (Molfetta–Castellaneta, 2006). And the Blog, where I write about how projects and events come to life. All of this holds together for one reason: the network. Over the past twenty years I have worked with municipalities, universities and companies across Europe.

 

I never build projects alone, I build them with the people who actually live on the ground.

 

 

my journey

Projects

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EDITRICE L'IMMAGINE

Visual communication in Molfetta since 1980: food labels, publishing, branding and territorial marketing. Industria Felix Award 2023.

 

A visual communication company founded at eighteen and still standing after forty-five years. From screen printing to publishing, from packaging to territorial marketing.

 

"Those young people who created a job for themselves"

That's what La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno called us. It was 1980. Stefano Salvemini and I were eighteen, with a worn screen-printing frame and very fresh ideas. We founded the Cooperativa L'Immagine in Molfetta together with Tonino, Giovanni, Saverio, Leo and Angelo, who left us shortly after, without knowing where it would take us. We invented the work ourselves. And when it didn't work, we kept at it until it did.

 

From screen printing we moved to art and advertising publishing, then to packaging for the food sector, to graphic design, to territorial marketing, to photography. Every step came from the curiosity to try something new and the stubbornness not to stop at the first obstacle. Obstacles, in forty-five years, were not lacking. Stefano is still here. It's not a detail, it means that when we decide to do something, we carry it through to the end. That's how it's worked since 1980.

 

What we do

We produce self-adhesive labels for the food sector, from olive oil cellars to wineries, from fruit and vegetables to bakery products. We create editorial and branding projects, books, catalogues and publications that turn a product or a territory into something you can leaf through, give as a gift, keep. And we build territorial marketing strategies for villages, destinations and networks of municipalities. Not off-the-shelf packages, every territory has its own story, and that's the one we tell.

 

 

Industria Felix Award 2023

In 2023, in Gallipoli, Editrice L'Immagine received the Industria Felix Award, in collaboration with Il Sole 24 Ore, as a company sound in management and reliable in financial terms within the cultural and tourism sector. Forty-five years of "inventing the work" didn't produce only ideas, but a company that holds up on the numbers too. The creative side shows straight away. The solid side shows when an award arrives that measures the balance sheets, not the intentions.

 

 

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

> A concrete vision to share. Inventing a job where there was none, starting from a screen-printing frame and eighteen years of age
> Stubbornness as method. When something doesn't work, you keep at it until it does
> Curiosity to reinvent yourself. From screen printing to publishing, to packaging, to territorial marketing, without stopping at what you already knew how to do
> Perseverance of a two-person company. After forty-five years Stefano is still here, and that changes how you decide and how you see things through

 

What we learned

In forty-five years we changed trade more than once, but the lesson stayed one only. A job is something you can invent, as long as you're stubborn enough not to give up at the first no. We learned it together, the two of us. That's the reason we're still here.

 

Editoria e branding, https://www.editricelimmagine.it
Packaging ed etichette, https://www.etichettelimmagine.it

 

 
Visual communication and territorial marketing since 1980
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NAVE ITALIA IN MOLFETTA 2026

Nave Italia in Molfetta, the world's largest sailing brig and nine inclusion associations. Graphic design and communication by Gaetano Armenio.

 

Communicating the arrival of the largest working sail brigantine in the world in the harbour of my hometown. Three days, eight associations working on inclusion, a network of military and civil bodies to fit into a single image.

 

The problem comes before the celebration

The sheet was blank and everyone had to fit on it. The Italian Navy, the Tender To Nave Italia Foundation, the Harbour Master's Office, the Apulia Region and eight Molfetta associations that work every day with disability and hardship. Logos that carry weight, hierarchies that allow no slip-ups, an order that someone would read as a ranking anyway. They asked me to handle the communication of an event. The real part of the job was this: holding a network together without anyone feeling pushed into the background, and without turning a programme into an org chart.

 

The decision: the ship at the centre, the bodies around it

I built the visual identity around the ship, not around the institutions. In an official event that is a choice you have to defend, because acronyms usually win. The photograph of the brigantine fills the space, the logos sit where they belong without stealing the scene. This untied the knot of hierarchies. If the ship is at the centre, no body is first and none is last. They are all gathered around the same thing.

 

Four days, four audiences

Nave Italia does not carry passengers, it carries crews. It is a 61-metre sailing ship of the Tender To Nave Italia Foundation, the non-profit promoted by the Italian Navy and the Italian Yacht Club, and it hosts educational and rehabilitation projects for people with disabilities and psychological and social hardship. The sea and life on board are the tool, young people who for a few days become real sailors.

 

The programme had to read clearly for people looking for different things. The ship arrives on Saturday 27 June, welcomed by the Santa Cecilia Band of Molfetta. and the official welcome on board with the authorities and the start of activities with the associations. On Sunday 28 the visits open to the city, morning and afternoon. On Monday 29 it closes at the Auditorium of the Diocesan Museum with the Nave Italia Conversations, where Commander Matteo Malerba, neuropsychiatrist Tommaso Tota and Dr Gagliani of the Tender To Nave Italia Foundationexplain what it means to teach autonomy out at sea.

 

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

> Visual identity built on the ship, to neutralise the problem of hierarchies between the bodies involved
> Coordinated graphics and communication, from the poster to the press materials
> A single visual system applied across four days with four different audiences
> The eight associations kept inside as protagonists, not as lines on a programme

 

What I learned

Handling the communication of an event wanted and organised by the cultural association Il Popolo Granchio of Molfetta (Bari) means finding the words for something that words risk betraying. A young person learning to trust the sea is not a moving story to sell.

 

It is a real achievement, and it has to be told with respect. The hardest part was not fitting five institutions onto one sheet. It was saying something delicate without making it weigh.

 

www.ilpopologranchio.it

 

 

 

Nave Italia’s communication: designing the visual identity for an event dedicated to inclusion
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SANTA CECILIA BAND 30 YEARS

Thirty years of Molfetta's Santa Cecilia Band on show at Sala dei Templari, 7 March 2026. Concept and graphics by Gaetano Armenio. 

Thirty panels, thirty years of history. And the microphone I was not expecting.

 

«Gaetano, take the microphone and speak»

Molfetta, Sala dei Templari, 7 March 2026, 7 p.m. The room was full and everything was still, waiting for who knows what. Then someone came up to me: «Gaetano, take the microphone and speak». I was not expecting it. I took the microphone and started from where it all started: 22 April 1996, fifteen people, one single conviction.

 

Thirty years to tell, not to celebrate

When the Santa Cecilia Band Association entrusted me with the design and coordination of the photography exhibition for its thirty years of activity, I understood at once that celebrating was not enough. It had to be told. "30 years of music and passion" is an exhibition path of more than thirty photographic panels, opened on 7 March 2026 at the Sala dei Templari in Molfetta, with the patronage of the City Council.

 

It retraces thirty years of history: from the founding in 1996 through the Holy Week of Molfetta, the Patron Saint Feast, the concerts and the music school. The funeral marches that accompany Apulian processional rites are not simply music: they are the sound identity of an entire region, kept with pride by associations like the Santa Cecilia Band.

 

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

> Concrete vision to share: thirty years of sound history are not celebrated, they are told
> Building a narrative path, not a collection of photographs: each panel sets up the next
> Writing in a double register: the Molfetta local recognises the story, the visitor discovers it for the first time
> Communication on several levels: press releases, social content, interviews for local and regional media
> I handled the graphics, texts and visual identity of the exhibition.

 

What I learned

I wrote all the panel texts and looked after every detail of the communication. The one thing I had not planned was the microphone. They passed it to me with no warning and I started from 22 April 1996. The room knew that date by heart. The unexpected gets handled: it is the part of the job you do not write into the quote.

 

 

> Press

https://www.puglialive.net/30-anni-di-musica-e-passione-la-banda-santa-cecilia-inaugura-la-sua-mostra-fotografica-a-molfetta-il-7-marzo/

https://www.molfettaviva.it/notizie/trent-anni-in-musica-la-banda-santa-cecilia-racconta-molfetta/

https://www.laltramolfetta.it/banda-santa-cecilia-30-anni-di-musica-e-passione-in-mostra/

https://molfettalive.it/2026/03/03/trentanni-di-musica-memoria-e-identita-sabato-si-celebra-la-banda-santa-cecilia/

 

> Video

https://youtu.be/2LqefOHKLxo?si=sonJ6cNKMXslMgAd

https://telenorba.it/2026/03/09/molfetta-i-30-anni-della-banda-di-santa-cecilia-celebrati-in-una-mostra/

 

Cultural event design and photographic exhibitions, 30 years of the Santa Cecilia Band in Molfetta
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PER CRUCEM AD LUCEM 2025

Photographic exhibition on Holy Week rites in Italy, Spain and Portugal, conceived by Gaetano Armenio.  Rome, Church of Sant'Antonio dei Portoghesi, and Molfetta, Sala dei Templari. 30 March-30 April 2025.

The embassies of Spain and Portugal to the Holy See, an inadequate lighting rig and the lights from my own bedroom.

 

I bring the lights from home

The room's lighting rig was not enough. Postponing or scaling down was not an option. I loaded the lights from my bedroom into the car and brought them to the Sala dei Templari in Molfetta. It was not a perfect exhibition. It was alive.

 

A bridge between three nations

I handled the concept, organisation and communication of PER CRUCEM AD LUCEM: an international photography exhibition dedicated to Holy Week rites in Apulia, Portugal and Spain. The aim was to tell European identity through fine art photography and to build a tourism promotion network around the Easter rites.

 

The exhibition had two venues: Rome, in the Church of Sant'Antonio dei Portoghesi, and Molfetta, in the Sala dei Templari. It was produced with the involvement of the Embassies of Spain and Portugal to the Holy See, the City of Molfetta and the FeArt Cooperative of Onofrio Grieco.

 

The network of towns it activated links Molfetta, Braga, Medina de Rioseco, Peñafiel and Bercianos de Aliste.

 

Ninì Vernola's performance

At the Molfetta opening, in the Sala dei Templari, I paired the exhibition with a theatrical performance by the unforgettable actor Ninì Vernola. A dense reading that touched on war and the suffering of the children of Gaza. It moved the audience. It drew criticism from the local institutions present at the opening. I do not regret it.

 

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

> Build the network before building the exhibition: embassies, municipalities, confraternities and cultural bodies from three countries
> The unexpected gets handled, not postponed: the bedroom lights lit the photographs because there was no alternative
> Pair art with civic commitment: a performance that divides is a performance that touches something real
> I handled the concept, organisation, communication and setup of the photographic project.

 

What I learned

The lights from my bedroom lit the photographs for a month in a hall in Molfetta. The comment I heard most often from visitors was: «I did not think an exhibition could be this involving». They were not saying it despite the home lights. Perhaps because of them.

 

 

Rome – Church of Sant'Antonio dei Portoghesi

https://youtube.com/shorts/KZHbVOQgmJQ?si=fJcGicZmJt7Oc0F2

Molfetta – Sala dei Templari

https://youtube.com/shorts/SKtiV8vr7wk?si=G7-Fk8-yaSDw8cct

 

 

International tourism and cultural marketing, the Easter rites of five European cities on show

Publications

Books and catalogues that turn a territory into something to leaf through and keep
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168 pages in four languages on Holy Week rites in Italy, Spain and Portugal. Graphic design by Gaetano Armenio, Editrice L'Immagine, 2025

 

In the Jubilee year, I recounted a single Holy Week across five towns and three countries. Molfetta in Italy, Braga in Portugal, Bercianos de Aliste, Medina de Rioseco and Peñafiel in Spain. Rites different in language and form, the same ancient gesture underneath.

It is a 168-page colour volume, bilingual Italian and English, documenting the travelling photographic exhibition PER CRUCEM AD LUCEM, presented in Rome at the Church of Sant'Antonio dei Portoghesi and in Molfetta at the Sala dei Templari, between March and April 2025. It gathers over a hundred large-format photographs of the processional rites of the five towns.

I organised the volume by town. Each section presents the photographs of the local rites with the historical and artistic profiles that place each territory's traditions in context, and the itineraries for going to see them in person, in the five towns at the heart of the exhibition. I kept the whole work in my own hands, the editorial project, the selection of the photographs, the graphic design and the layout, and I wrote one of the critical texts. Printing is by Editrice L'Immagine.

Lining up five Holy Weeks from three different countries served to show something you cannot grasp from inside a single town. The suffering and the light of the title, per crucem ad lucem, do not belong to one country alone. They change accent from Molfetta to Braga to Peñafiel, but they all tell the same night.

 

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180 bilingual pages on Apulia's emotional routes, across 14 towns and 15 food producers. Graphic design and photography by Gaetano Armenio, 2021.

 

In 2023 I prepared the second edition, and you only make a second edition when the first was good for something. The 2021 guide had found readers, the towns had used it, the producers had recognised themselves in it. So I updated it, took out what had not worked, added what was missing.

It is the official publication of PUGLIAUTENTICA.IT in an updated edition, a pocket colour guide of 140 pages, bilingual Italian and English, telling the Apulia of traditions, rites and food and wine to an Italian and international audience. Inside are thematic itineraries from Gargano to Salento, built around 14 towns and 15 food and farming producers.

 

I organised it by emotional itineraries, the Easter rites, the patron saint festivals, the food and wine routes, each with its own maps and practical directions. The real novelty is the "Meet the Maker" profiles, which introduce the local producers with a direct link to the shop on the www.pugliautentica.it portal, where typical products are bought from the people who make them. Not a company name on a list, the face of the person who works there. Editorial project, text, graphic design and layout, from the first line to the last page it is all mine.

A guide that reaches a second edition is no longer a gamble. It is a tool that has shown it works. Updating it means listening to those who used it the first time and correcting, not repeating. The Apulia you have never seen, by the second edition, I knew better myself too.

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Shut indoors like everyone else, I had an idea that seemed out of step at the time. To make people want Apulia precisely when no one could move. Travel was frozen, the processions cancelled, the festivals closed. And I set about building a guide to bring people to Apulia, the moment it became possible again.

The result was the first official publication of PUGLIAUTENTICA.IT, a pocket colour guide of 180 pages, bilingual Italian and English, released in 2021. Inside are the emotional routes from Gargano to Salento, built around 14 towns and 15 food and farming producers.

 

I organised everything by theme, the Easter rites, the patron saint festivals, the paths among rock-hewn hermitages and pilgrim ways, the wine and food tours in cellars and oil mills. Each route is meant for those looking for Apulia off the mass circuits, not the crowded beach but the hermitage, not the tourist restaurant but the oil mill. The guide connects to the portal's e-commerce, where extra virgin olive oil, wine, preserves and traditional sweets are bought directly from the producers. Editorial project, text, graphic design and layout I carried through on my own, from the idea to the guide you find in your hands.

Building a travel guide while travel is banned sounds like a contradiction. It was not. The desire for a place does not stop when you do. That guide was there to keep it alight, ready for the day we could set off again.

 

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