Behind the boats: shells and numbers to tell the story of the boating industry's economy

Visiting the Arsenale offers a unique feeling, like entering a mausoleum of human technical achievement. It was once the largest shipyard in the world, and you can still feel it today. By setting the Salone Nautico here, Venice made clear the cultural vocation of the event. At the opening, the La Fenice choir moved everyone, singing the Italian national anthem in perfect sync with the Frecce Tricolori.

There are two goals behind this project: to engage and to inform. To engage, we chose motion graphics and an immersive video environment. To inform, we chose infographics and an accessible, informative tone for the texts.

What's behind the boats? This is the communication challenge, summed up even in the title. To tell the story of the boating industry system in the Veneto region, in agreement with the curators, we decided to use a visual metaphor from the marine world: the small-yet-great submerged builders.

Two 14-square-meter displays aren't experienced the same way everywhere. Thanks to the wide corridors, our film could enter a visitor's field of view from as far as 30 meters away. The pacing of the story was calibrated on these considerations, and the full film was divided into chapters emphasized by an engaging sound design.

Many people were involved in this project, and just as many were the visitors who came to see it (27,000 visitors according to the Salone). In the photo below, some members of the team before the opening.