The logo of the Italian G20 presidency was born from a reflection on Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawing “Vitruvian Man”.
The logo features the two primary geometric figures that contain the human figure in Leonardo’s work. The square, a sign of centering and stability, and the circle, a symbol of motion and the absolute.
In the G20 logo, the square in blue is the representation of Italy, the circle in gold symbolizes the globe and the motion of renewal.
The wording “G20” conceptually replaces the figure of man. Just as in the original work the human figure acts as a link between the worlds, we imagine that Italy in this important international occasion can act as the center of conjunction for the determination of the new “proportions of the world”.
The characters that make up the G20 logotype recall and represent the typical shapes of Italian architecture and lettering. A pregnant composition, clear and strongly recognizable that succeeds in condensing in its elegance more than 2000 years of history.
The “G” evokes Imperial Rome and is inspired by the letters engraved on the base of Trajan’s Column, one of the capital’s symbolic monuments.
The “2” is a tribute to the excellence of Italian typography in the world, Bodoni. A neoclassical typeface designed in 1798 by the renowned engraver Gian Battista Bodoni. It is characterized by the strong contrast between thick and thin lines, synonymous with elegance and harmony.
In the modernist “0” and in the rigorous geometry of the circle is distilled the essence of rationalist thought and avant-garde art, such as Futurism, which managed to give new life to contemporary visual culture.
