What the 300 ADI Design Index 2025 projects reveal about Italian design today

The Adi Design Index is more than a catalog: it is a collective portrait of Italian design, an observatory that each year captures a discipline that is increasingly broad, interconnected, and aware of its cultural role. From the presentation of the 2025 edition, one thing is clear: design is not just about products but about society, culture, and identity. The 344 projects selected from over a thousand candidates form a constellation of ideas linked by one common thread — the culture of design.

“A catalog that tells the plural forms of design today,” said Francesco Zurlo, member of the Scientific Committee, describing the Adi Design Index 2025. If the Compasso d’Oro is considered the Oscars of design, the Index acts as the shortlist of the year’s best “films.” A committee formed by the Permanent Design Observatory and guided by Makio Hasuike, Domenico Sturabotti, Laura Traldi, and Zurlo selected the most significant projects across fourteen categories: Living, Lighting, Mobility, Work, Personal, Food, Materials and Technology Systems, Services, Social, Business Research, Communication, Exhibition, Theoretical Research, and the Young Award.

Founded more than seventy years ago by Gio Ponti, the Compasso d’Oro remains one of the most prestigious design awards worldwide. The historical collection of winners is displayed at the Adi Design Museum in Milan and, since 2004, has been officially recognized by Italy’s Ministry of Culture as a national artistic heritage. Every project competing for the 2026 Compasso d’Oro must first pass through the Index.

“Observing is no longer enough; we want to help people understand.” With these words, Adi President Luciano Galimberti presented the main novelty of this year’s edition. After 27 years, the Index evolves by establishing a new Research Center aimed at contextualizing industrial design through data and analysis of contemporary society, economy, and culture. Working with Istat, Federculture, Fondazione Symbola, and Federlegno, the center will publish an annual report — starting with the 2023–2025 triennium — integrated into the Index volume and distributed to schools, institutions, and studios.

The 2025 selection reflects both the diversity and vitality of Italian design: 344 projects, a 30% increase over the previous year. Several key themes emerge. The first is plurality — not as dispersion, but as a method. The Index presents a balanced image where young designers and established masters, small studios and major companies, universities and non-profits all coexist. Italian design today is a network of relationships, a constellation rather than a single direction.

The second is the focus on the individual, with growing attention to well-being, accessibility, and health. The domestic sphere remains central, while research and enterprise increasingly intersect in projects that merge technology and responsibility. The Young Award marks a record number of entries, confirming students and schools as antennas for social and environmental innovation. Among the most original is a device resembling an old cassette recorder, created by students at the Politecnico di Torino, capable of translating corn frequencies into ambient music — a playful synthesis of research and imagination.

The categories showing the strongest growth include living, personal design, exhibition, communication, and business research. Among the most notable projects: Lana, a modular radiator in recyclable aluminum designed by Amdl Circle for Antrax It; Snøhetta’s modular sofa system for Mdf Italia; and the collection of baskets, lamps, and tables by Paola Lenti with the Japanese studio Nendo, produced through thermocompression of fabrics.

Alias presents Nastro by Daniel Rybakken, a height-adjustable table inspired by analog tape recorders, while Konstantin Grcic reinterprets the Safari Chair with Magic. Molteni&C brings back Gio Ponti’s 1963 armchair Continuum D.163.7. In lighting, Kartell, Artemide, and Flos confirm their presence, with Flos collaborating with Formafantasma, while Alessi unveils a lamp designed by Michael Anastassiades and inspired by the Japanese game tsumiki. In personal design, eyewear stands out: from Meta’s Ray-Bans to Univet’s surgical glasses and the Micromega Cult models in beta titanium, free from screws and welding. In exhibition design, Filippo Bisagni’s project with Francesco Vezzoli at Venice’s Museo Correr — within Carlo Scarpa’s historical layout — is also among the selected works.

Lombardy alone accounts for 30% of Italy’s design production, with 44,000 companies and 14,000 in the design sector. The first exhibition stop is therefore Milan, at the Adi Design Museum, during and after the Salone del Mobile Milano. The Index then becomes itinerant: it will open in Agrigento in November 2025, continue to L’Aquila in 2026, and Pordenone in 2027. In parallel, during the Salone del Mobile, a Compasso d’Oro exhibition will open in Milan, followed by the award ceremony and later a presentation at Rome’s Maxxi Museum — a signal of an emerging national museum system for design, open to collaboration and dialogue between institutions.

The 300 projects of the Adi Design Index 2025 tell of a design culture that resists simplification. Italian design today seeks coherence within diversity, balancing research and craftsmanship, technology and emotion. It puts people at the center, transforms knowledge into value, and connects local traditions with global vision. In Gio Ponti’s words, design remains “the useful made poetic” — an art of understanding through making, still shaping how Italy imagines its future.