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Angelo Giuseppe Fronzoni (1923 – 2002), known as AG Fronzoni, was an Italian graphic designer, publisher, industrial designer, architect, and educator.

Career
In 1945 AG Fronzoni opens his own studio in Brescia, Italy. He conducts a multi-form type business that specializes in publishing, graphic design, architecture, exhibition design and industrial design. In 1947 Fronzoni began to design and a direct a magazine called "La Punta". In 1956, Fronzoni makes a big leap and enters Milan where he founds his second studio. In 1963, he designs a "Quadra Lamp", a lamp that grew popular as a result of Fronzoni's minimalistic style. In the same year, he designed a sleek briefcase with famous Italian luxury brand Valextra. From 1965 to 1967, Fronzoni was the designer for the architectural magazine "Casabella". From 1967 to 1969, Fronzoni was asked by Able Steiner to teach at Humanitarian Society School in Milan. From 1967 to 1988, he teaches at the state art institution in Monza. From 1982-2001, he finds and runs his own workshop school. Fronzoni died in 2002 and left behind a legacy of minimalism and strongly believed in getting rid of the waste and excess.

The "Bottega"
With the "Bottega", Fronzoni developed a new type of teaching far from models of vocational schools, but immensely rich by comparison and known for the relationships established with its students. For Fronzoni, projects come to life from reality: every event is subject to design analysis, and the practice of provocation is always pushing for the comparison, reflection, and formation of a critical sense. Education, like all other forms of social communication, was essential for Fronzoni. Fronzoni deemed it nesscecary to pass on the knowledge he had accumulated through years of practice. Fronzoni's workshop trained and directed students towards the art of continual research and turning that research in to the essence of life, nature and the form around them. "since being invited into schools in 1967, I have become more and more aware that the real job of the designer, rather than any technique, is to cultivate: the designer's real objective is not to buildthe city but to show how a city may be built, with the city as a tangible form of civilisation." - AG Fronzoni

"My ambition is not to design a poster, it's designing men." »

The Philosophy
"The deeper meaning of the design is not so much to build a house, how to build it ourselves. Design their own existence is a commitment that must be our main concern, and this commitment must be total and continuous, non-drinker and relative. »

Fronzoni believes in the ability to transform the world through the design and the design through culture. Kind and decent, he does not hesitate to fight with great energy to the sense of form, attributing responsibility salvific, even if it comes to defending a tiny typeface. The little historic influence in Italy of the Bauhaus makes him maintain an attitude of critical and uncompromising standing what is conventional, formal and conformist, which is reflected in its particular way of life transgression, a transgression absolutely "governed rather than disobedient". Fronzoni claimed that he was not aiming to satisfy the needs of the clients, but rather to do away with them. Fronzoni believed that the art of design should not be kept to the professionals but be as "widespread as writing". He truly believed his only client was the community and in turn became a designer for the people.

Black & White
Fronzoni considers black and white as the colors representative of the design of man, an expression of opposition and reflection, while the color belongs to the natural world and is so alien, but not as an alternative to the work of man. Fronzoni's many projects reflect his ideals towards black and white: the rigor of the contrast of white and black, provides a sense of conceptual purity as well as the tones of minimalism. The poster is the space of freedom of thought, without limits or rules, essentially a sandbox. The typefaces are for Fronzoni the "grammar" of graphic design: small if you have to emphasize the space of reading if you are thinking are large, cut, scored, manipulated. "The symmetry of the past, while the asymmetry is modern, because it is dynamic, and a staple for contemporary design. What has been done not only is modern: it is the mirror of a society is not advanced."

Projects
Casabella: During the mid-sixties, Fronzoni and Alessandro Mendini were responsible for the visual language and layout of one of the most important magazines on architecture: "Casabella." Fronzoni's approach as art director shaped its style and content. The issues published between 1965 and 1967, under his direction can be considered a radical reinterpretation of the at that time already established Swiss style. Each cover featured a tiny masthead accompanied by one picture printed in a single colour. The arrangement of the image gave a preview of the grid Fronzoni used for the pages inside. The upper quarter of the page was reserved for headlines. The rest of the page was based on an asymmetric layout with text starting on the left column and pictures spreading alongside over two columns. The whole magazine was typeset in Helvetica. After two years of successful collaboration, when the editor Gian Antonio Bernasconi asked Fronzoni to redesign the magazine he resigned.

Selected Projects in the Field of Industrial Design
 * "Quadra" lamp was designed in 1962 and went into production in 2002.
 * "Form Zero 63+65" suitcase series designed in 1963 and 1965 to contain six suites.
 * "Series '64" is a furniture line (bed, tables, chair, lounge chair). Fronzoni employed it in most of his interior design and architectural projects, as well as in his Bottega school. Series '64 is produced by Capellini to this day.

After realizing the layout of the museum of Walser culture to Alagna (prize Zanotti Bianco), Genoa had restoration of Palazzo Balbi Senarega, headquarters of the Institute of History of Art at the University of Genoa and of the Orangerie White Palace, home of the modern art gallery. Always in Genoa, directs the restructuring of the art gallery "The Figurehead", which will also be responsible for the graphics of the catalogues, and the design of the image culture "Art and City". In Pavia is called by Marco Fraccaro to restore the stables of the College Cairoli, now an exhibition space of the University. He designed the corporate image of various companies and its work is acknowledged and exhibited in major museums such as the MoMA in New York. Its unmistakable imprint remains perfectly minimalist current. Many works are part of permanent collections: the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, in Kunstgewerbe Museum in Zurich, in the Musée Cantonal des beaux-arts de Lausanne, in Deutsches Bucherei Leipzig, Deutsches Plakat Museum in Essen, in the Muzeum Narodowe Warsaw, in Morovska Galerie in Brno, in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.