The great success of Youth Design Day 2018 in Japan for Switch on Your Creativity (5th Edition) at the Italian Institute of Culture in Osaka, allows us to appreciate and enhance with greater force the creative results obtained by our designers selected during Milan Design Week 2018.

Among all, a special mention should be given to Alessio de Stefano and his work “Filofono”.

Alessio, more than anyone else, managed to express and apply the concept of eco-sustainability to a design work. His idea was born from the intention of creating something that was aesthetically satisfying but with a romantic and vintage touch, and that could be useful at the same time to the modern and technological world of today.

His project is a mobile amplifier whose effectiveness has already been fully tested at the Italian Institute of Culture in Osaka, where it will continue to be on display until November 13th.

Conceived as a design tool that is not too invasive, its traditional wooden color contrast with modern dark and grey amplifiers, trying to visually represent the strong contrast between tradition and modernity with which it was conceived.
It deserves to be mentioned because the eco-sustainable sensibility, demonstrated by the use of wood as a material, and the aesthetic-artistic sensibility, demonstrated by the curvy shape, reach a perfect harmony when, together, they recall the great tradition of Italian craftsmanship.

However, in this case, tradition is not synonymous with backwardness. Despite being an object that, by the will of its creator, has an aesthetic touch aimed at recalling nostalgia and tradition, it is not fossilised in old-fashioned and old use, but rather looks to the future, trying to be useful for that age group that more than others is better able to live and express the violent changes that take place within our society, caused first of all by the rapid technological evolution.

An instrument suitable for youth and modern technology but that will be never unloaded. Being a natural amplifier, it does not require electricity, thus being further eco-sustainable. Filofono tries to demonstrate how useful it can be to return to the artisanal workforce and to discover new uses that materials considered no longer modern can still offer.

Tradition and Innovation are the values ​​we want to exalt through Switch On Your Creativity and Alessio De Stefano has fully succeeded in developing them. We hope that Youth Design Day in Japan has given Alessio De Stefano and other young designers the tools and support needed to express their creativity in the field of Design.