Five questions with

Michela Scibilia

She calls herself a “geek” and has a collection of maps in various sizes and scales, hung and scattered on every surface of her house. As I walked into her apartment – on the uppermost floor of a Venetian Palazzo overlooking the San Michele cemetery – I noticed a king-size Venice map laid wide open on her desk. “I drew this one.” she said as the sun filtered through the windows, diffusing a bright, warm light in her living room, which also serves as her studio. Michela Scibilia was sitting at her angled desk in front of a huge monitor. She’s been working as a graphic designer for 40 years. She was in her 30s when our founder Marie asked her to help develop Laguna~B’s first logo and visual identity. They collaborated for several years, gradually becoming friends, crafting Laguna~B’s early communication piece by piece. They made catalogs, postcards, and even a website – a revolutionary move for a small Venetian business in the 00s. As Scibilia pointed out, “Although Marie could have afforded a mega studio in Milan, we did everything locally and on a small scale.” During our conversation, we retraced the origins of Marie’s postcard passion and the foundation of our company’s communication.

Why did you choose to work as a graphic designer?

To me, graphic design is a family thing rather than an actual ‘passion.’ My father was a graphic designer, too. I came to Venice to study architecture in the 80s – unlike today, back then, a student could support herself and rent an apartment in Venice, even working very little, something that’s unimaginable today. Nonetheless, I immediately started working as a graphic designer for a local publishing house, L’arsenale Editrice, whose studio was in Calle dei Fabbri. After I left the studio and began to work on my own, Marie was one of my first clients. I started this job in 1986, immediately using computers. In those years, that was really ahead of the time. We were – what’s the expression – digital pioneers. I’ve always felt like an artisan. I like to invent solutions and solve problems. I can span from creating my own product – like I did with my books and my guides – to making custom projects for others. My computer is the only tool I use: I am a sort of a digital artisan.

How did you first meet our founder, Marie?

We had friends in common. When she first called me, it was because she needed help creating Laguna~B’s logo – which at first had a ‘long-tailed’ B. I already had a long experience with computers – out of all the graphic designers in Venice, I was certainly ahead of them. I was a bit of a geek. So we got to work. She would draw her pen sketches, and I would convert them into digital vectors. Initially, I didn't like the ‘B’ the way she made it – as well as other ideas she proposed. But then I understood there was the “Marie factor,” meaning she could turn a super-kitsch idea into something fresh, a bit naïve, yes, but she could make it work. I’ve always done graphic design for publishing, I have a background in design, so I’ve always followed a certain approach based on linearity, simplicity, and basic design principles. On the contrary, Marie loved to ‘pasticciare’, mixing and matching elements in graphic pastiches. I wasn't really doing my job, but rather I would be her lending hand. Together, we also made the catalogs, the website, and other little things. She always wanted to add decorations, like dots and waves, all over my templates. It was fun, though; it was a way of being together.

You created Laguna~B’s first website​​​. What can you tell me about it?

It was 2000. By the time we started the website Marie already trusted me – because I knew her style and taste. At the time, in order to develop a website, you really had to be a nerd. You had to keep the images and files very light. You had to create very limited color palettes, reducing it to a maximum of 100 colors. You needed to lower the resolution and to know certain tricks to hide the perception of low-res. Just imagine how stressful it was! Laguna~B’s first site was simple but also peculiar, wasn’t it? It had little icons that you could click – for the time, it was quite original. There’s a gondola icon in the upper right part – by clicking it, you could access a page with Marie's Venice tips, typical of Marie’s aesthetics. She loved little things like that.

I heard you were the one who inspired Marie to take up the postcard tradition, which eventually entered Laguna~B’s DNA.

I used to create a lot of postcards as a girl. My studio was called Teodolinda, after my grandmother. We used to send them to friends and clients at the end of the year, it was a lot of work. My husband and I, as well as our employees and those who had collaborated with us that year, always appeared in the postcards. I do think I inspired her because after she saw that I was making New Year’s Eve postcards, she wanted to make them, too. It became a fun game between us. She always wanted to include her children and also her dachshund. As long as the kids were little, I would go over and pose them and take pictures of them, but when they got older, I had to photoshop them in – shamelessly. On top of that, she would write or draw something by hand, to add an elegant touch.

How did glass companies communicate at the time, and why was Laguna~B different?

They didn’t communicate at all because they feared they would be copied. I published a guide to Murano whose first edition was released in 1983. Back then only one in 10 manufacturers had a website. When I made my guide, visiting company after company, I noticed the owners were very reluctant to show me their catalog. In fact, Marie's glasses were copied right away. Now, it might be difficult to retrace the Goto glasses’ journey, but at the time, they weren’t popular, and you didn’t see them for sale in glass shops. Marie elevated the Goto into an object of desire, and everyone started copying it. There was nothing like Laguna~B at the time, only a few little shops that produced their objects in Murano – but then they wouldn't tell you where they produced, again, for fear of being copied... Then Marie came up with a company that worked – initially born as a hobby and out of her typical lightness – with products that sparked interest even outside Venice. Since she had her own style, a strong personality, and talent, Laguna~B became successful. It became also important for the city and for Murano, where, especially in those years, everybody hated each other. Everyone was jealous of their secrets. Instead, Marie came up with her glass designs and took them outside, abroad. After 30 years, the generational shift has positively affected Murano: glassmasters and companies now collaborate with each other and are more open to the world. But the imprinting remains.

Discover Michela's selection