MOLFETTA ENTREPRENEURS ASSOCIATION

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

Molfetta's Holy Week rites at BIT Milan 2025, with immersive video, Bassa Musica and scarcelle tasting. Concept by Gaetano Armenio.

On a commission from the town council I turned Molfetta's Easter into a trade fair format, with the local tourism chain inside the story. And two boxes of sweets gone minutes before opening.

The case of the missing scarcelle

Everything was ready. Stand set up, videos on a loop, scarcelle packaged. Minutes before opening, the discovery. Two boxes of scarcelle had disappeared. In the storeroom of the regional Infopoint, only the empty packaging was left in the bin. Some curious operator had already sampled the Molfetta tradition in preview. No panic. I had planned a secret backup supply, because at trade fairs you don't rely on surveillance alone. In a few minutes I reorganized the display and the tasting. The presentation started on time.

An Easter that becomes a tourism product

On behalf of the Municipality of Molfetta I handled the participation in the BIT, the Milan International Tourism Exchange 2025, as a tourism and cultural marketing project. The aim was to turn Molfetta's Easter into a trade-fair format able to stand out among hundreds of destinations and to speak to buyers, operators and media. I built an experience, not a stand. Immersive video projections on the Holy Week rites, the Bassa Musica "Città di Molfetta" as an identity element, and the scarcella, the sweet that symbolizes the local Easter, at the center of a guided tasting that became a moment of B2B relationship.

But you don't take a format to a fair on your own. Before Milan I built a network with the operators of Molfetta's tourism supply chain, hospitality, restaurants, guides. Not as suppliers, as part of the story. Each brought their own part to the stand: some the products for the tasting, some the itineraries to offer buyers, some the readiness to host groups during Holy Week. At the BIT we shared the promotion, so that a buyer wasn't buying an event but a territory ready to receive them. I conceived the concept, designed the multimedia content and handled communication.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

Concrete vision to share: bring an Easter experience to the fair, not one more exhibitor among many
Immersive videos, live music and a sweet to taste, because brochures aren't remembered
Network the supply chain before the fair: hospitality, restaurants and guides sharing the promotion, so you sell a territory and not an event
A secret backup always ready, because at trade fairs the unexpected is the rule, not the exception
I conceived the concept and designed the multimedia content and communication
Coordinate Municipality, Pugliapromozione, Infopoint, Bassa Musica and local operators under a single direction

What I learned

At the BIT, Molfetta's Easter stopped being just a religious event and became a structured tourism product. I had prepared a whole experience, video, music, tasting, and behind it a coordinated territory. Yet the buyers didn't remember the video or the stand. They remembered the scarcella, and the story of the ones that vanished.

Find out more

- Watch the video of the BIT event on my YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drpGPt281xk

- Find out more about Easter in Molfetta and the Holy Week rituals:

https://www.settimanasantainpuglia.it/en/cities/the-ti-te.html

Ten itineraries for Molfetta, a pocket guide in Italian, English and German and a web portal, 2014. Graphics and communication by Gaetano Armenio.

"Why would a tourist stop in Molfetta? There is nothing here." The project cost twenty thousand euro. The town council put in three thousand, the other seventeen thousand I raised one by one from private operators.

"There's nothing here", famous last words

"Why would a tourist stop in Molfetta? There's nothing here." I heard this repeated often at the meetings with the city's tourism supply chain, while I was working on the tourism promotion project VISITMOLFETTA.IT. Every time I answered the same way, no place on earth is truly empty. Where there's a community there's a genius loci, a story, someone ready to listen to it if you tell it well.

From "there's nothing" to ten itineraries

I started looking at Molfetta as if I didn't know it. Out of the supposed nothing came ten cultural-tourism itineraries, each with a precise soul: "La Via per l'Oriente", "Al Centro della Terra", the Easter events, the September Feast, "il Respiro del Mare", "le Vie del Gusto", "La Vie en Rose", "il Saper Fare", "gli Eventi Culturali", "Bella di Notte". I turned these themes into a multilingual pocket guide, in Italian, English and German, distributed at the main international tourism fairs, and into a dedicated web portal that gathered itineraries, events and impressions. A project designed to prove, in fact, that "there's nothing here" was simply a wrong reading of the territory.

Twenty thousand euros, and only three thousand from the public purse

The project cost 20,000 euros. The Municipality put in 3,000, the rest I raised myself, one by one, from the private operators of the tourism supply chain. Seventeen thousand euros put together by knocking on the doors of hoteliers, restaurateurs and shopkeepers, the same ones who sometimes said "there's nothing here". Convincing those who don't believe in their own territory to fund its story is the hardest work, and the best proof that the story worked.

The guide reaches Berlin

The guide did not stay in the infopoints. In 2014 I took it to BIT in Milan in February, to ITB in Berlin in March and to TTG in Rimini, always inside the Apulia Region stand. That is why I wanted a German edition and not just an English one. The same year Molfetta made it onto national television, with Davide Mengacci and Ricette all'Italiana on Rete 4.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

Concrete vision to share: no place is empty, every community has a genius loci waiting to be told
Look at your own territory as if you didn't know it, it's the only way to see what the locals no longer notice
Give each itinerary a name and a soul, "Bella di Notte" sells better than "evening itinerary"
A multilingual guide for the international fairs, speak the language of those who buy, not only your own
Take the guide where the buyers are, BIT, ITB and TTG inside the Apulia Region stand
Raise 17,000 euros from private backers and 3,000 from the Municipality, don't wait for the public tender to start
I handled the communication, the graphics, the guide and the web portal of the project

What I learned

"There's nothing here" wasn't a description of Molfetta. It was the way those who lived it every day looked at it. It only took a change of gaze to find ten itineraries where others saw a town you pass through. And those who said "there's nothing here" ended up reaching for their wallets to tell its story.

website > www.visitmolfetta.com

video > https://youtu.be/fLA4y8BhDes?feature=shared

Ten itineraries and a multilingual pocket guide to Bitonto, presented at the BIT in Milan in 2017. Graphic design and communication by Gaetano Armenio.

“Ch’ tande bitontini propri a taje a’ venne chiameu” (with so many people from Bitonto, they really should have called it after you), a chef told me at the first meeting. That same year, Bitonto reached the final of the Italian Capital of Culture 2020 competition, up against Parma.

"With so many people from Bitonto, you're the one they had to call"

That's how a well-known chef greeted me, in dialect, at the first meeting of Bitonto's tourism supply chain. I'm used to initial distrust, I always take it as one more challenge. The one who had called me was councillor Rocco Mangini, with a precise bet: to build a new awareness of Bitonto's tourism and cultural heritage among all operators, public and private. The aim was to build a territorial marketing project able to hold together history, art, traditions and food and wine, involving the Municipality and private companies in a shared path.

From hidden heritage to a multilingual guide

As I had already done with VISITMOLFETTA.IT, I looked at Bitonto as if I didn't know it. I worked to bring out the richness of the old town, the city's cultural identity, the chance to turn a stopover into a recognizable destination. I identified ten themed tourist itineraries, each with a name that is already an invitation: "Di chiostro in chiostro", "I giardini dell'Eden", "Pane olio e...", "La Settimana Santa". Ten different ways to walk Bitonto depending on what you're looking for, so that the tourist doesn't get a guide to read but a route to follow for each day of their stay. The result is a multilingual pocket guide, presented at the BIT in Milan together with councillor Mangini. Not a catalogue of monuments, a story of a living place.

The ending no one expected

That year Bitonto put forward its bid for Italian Capital of Culture 2020 and reached the final, challenging Parma to the very end. Mayor Michele Abbaticchio and councillor Rocco Mangini had built a precise trajectory. VISITBITONTO.COM was one of the pieces of that trajectory.

La Cassetta degli Attrezzi

Concrete vision to share: turn Bitonto from a stopover into a recognizable destination
Take distrust as a challenge, "you're the one they had to call" is a starting point, not a problem
Look at the territory as if you didn't know it, the same method as VISITMOLFETTA.IT
Ten themed itineraries instead of a list of monuments, because the tourist doesn't want to know what to see but how to spend the day
A multilingual guide for the fairs, a story that physically travels
I handled graphics, the guide and the communication of the projec

What I learned

A pocket guide is never only a guide. In Bitonto it was the first time the town council and private operators told the city with a single voice, and holding that table together cost more effort than the ten itineraries. Leafing through it, you cannot see that part.