Feltrinelli SC/10

"In Italy, the cultural book almost has always a price higher than the average reader can afford", and for this reason "SC/10 is not only a new series, but also - and above all - a new and modern editorial concept: a high quality paperback, as it was called in America and England, that is the economic edition, thanks to a high circulation, of works of a high cultural and scientific level". Thus in 1966 the series of classical, ancient and modern texts and contemporary essays was inaugurated.

While SC stands for "Serie Cultura" (Culture Series), it's not clear whether the "10" has a particular meaning, as it is the only series to have a code name. What we know, however, is that the graphic layout was assigned to an iconic agency: Unimark International. This happens in the same period in which the Feltrinelli bookstores are experimenting with unconventional methods to be more "pop", close to the consumer (installing pinball machines, organizing meetings with the authors, offering roasted chestnuts). Also, in those years, "books become more aggressive, freer, more nervous: the young man understood that subversion is now done otherwise, that gestures must become more radical and more unscrupulous." (Enrico Filippini, from a 1979 article)

The result is, as the Biblioteca Sansoni the year before, an object that distorts the conventions of creating book covers, drawing on contemporary art but without abandoning the characteristic Garamond that distinguished all Feltrinelli books. The bright colors burst into the Feltrinelli catalog, so far dominated by white, black and red, at the same time as a restyling of the "I narratori" series, and the introduction of "Scienza Nuova", "I protagonisti" and "l'URSS" , again by Bob Noorda with Massimo Vignelli at Unimark. A V of three alternating two-color bands cuts the cover, and the Garamond texts, including the summary on the back cover, follow the 45-degree orientation of the sign. This V, in recent times also interpreted as an inclined F (by Feltrinelli), is actually borrowed from a series of paintings by Kenneth Noland, contemporary with the first editions. Vignelli himself also specifies an inspiration from the lines and colors of Frank Stella, in addition to those of Noland.

In the first pages, under the copyright to Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, the words “Design: Bob Noorda & Massimo Vignelli / Unimark” are reported. However, Salvatore Gregorietti, who at the time had just started working at Unimark Milan in charge of developing this series, reveals in an interview that the design of the SC/10 covers was exclusively by Vignelli - a plausible claim given the lack of similarity with the works of Noorda already performed at Vallecchi (which instead have similarities with other new Feltrinelli series such as "I narratori" or "I protagonisti") and the more typically Vignellian modus operandi of borrowing concepts from modern art and architecture.

SC/10 continues unchanged until at least 1983, the year in which a new coordinated identity for Feltrinelli begins to be implemented by Bob Noorda and Salvatore Gregorietti and many of the essays are re-edited under the “Campi del sapere” series.