Publication: Fabrica's handbook for new recruits is a thing of beauty

Date
19 September 2013

We all remember the first-day-at-big-school feeling. The chafingly starched collar, the intermingling of nerves and excitement, the slew of things to get your head round; the who, the where, the what, the why. You’d think this would go away as you get older but it doesn’t really and with that in mind, the famous cultural research centre Fabrica has produced a beautiful handbook for new arrivals, or “Fabricanti” as they are known.

Opening with the words “Welcome to Fabrica. You have one year,” the book is a response to a very real problem, which CEO Dan Hill explains as multinational, multilingual new recruits having "to quickly get their head around a unique organisation, with a particular mission, in a very special space.

“It describes places, people, processes and projects – and all the basics in terms of living locally, from ordering pasta and visiting the Biennale to why a fur coat and a little dog makes you a Treviso resident.”

Above

Fabrica: Fabricanti Handbook

Above

Fabrica: Fabricanti Handbook

Designed by current Fabricanti Samantha Ziino and Anna Kulacheck, it’s a beautiful object with a delicate white cover on which the designers hope “the scuffs, bruises and scribbles tell their own story at the end of the year.” The colour scheme is great, the visuals impeccable and there’s some really nice content-driven touches (such as smaller paper size when explaining something “unofficial”).

And as well as being an invaluable resource for Fabrica’s team, it also by its very nature becomes a snapshot of this intriguing institution which will evolve over time. Dan says: “This book is by Fabricanti for Fabricanti. But it also describes Fabrica. In making the book, we had to commit to print a few key ideas, notions, patterns about Fabrica, which hadn’t happened much. So as Fabrica enters a new phase of its history, the Fabricanti Handbook is an excuse to form a few ideas about what it is. It is a functional document – how do you not just survive Fabrica, but thrive? – but also an inspirational one, a sketch of what Fabrica is now.”

And if the book has whetted your appetite and you are under 25 you can apply to be s Fabricanti of the future – see the link below for details!

Above

Fabrica: Fabricanti Handbook

Above

Fabrica: Fabricanti Handbook

Above

Fabrica: Fabricanti Handbook

Above

Fabrica: Fabricanti Handbook

Above

Fabrica: Fabricanti Handbook

Above

Fabrica: Fabricanti Handbook

Above

Fabrica: Fabricanti Handbook

Above

Fabrica: Fabricanti Handbook

Above

Fabrica: Fabricanti Handbook

Share Article

Further Info

About the Author

Rob Alderson

Rob joined It’s Nice That as Online Editor in July 2011 before becoming Editor-in-Chief and working across all editorial projects including itsnicethat.com, Printed Pages, Here and Nicer Tuesdays. Rob left It’s Nice That in June 2015.

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.