Created for Milan Design Week 2026, this special issue by L’Essenziale Studio explores design as a cultural language shaped by function, aesthetics, context and critical thinking. Conceived as a guide through the intensity of the city’s annual design calendar, the publication invites readers to look beyond surfaces, trends and spectacle, offering tools to engage more consciously with the projects, spaces and narratives that define contemporary design today.
Bringing together international designers, creatives and voices connected to Milan in different ways, the issue combines project presentations with personal reflections and meaningful places tied to the city or to the wider design world. The result is a multifaceted portrait of design culture through objects, ideas and lived experiences.
Rather than offering fixed answers, the publication opens questions around what design is, how it evolves, and why it continues to matter. Positioned between editorial research and cultural mapping, this special issue becomes both a reader’s companion during Design Week and a lasting document of the people and practices shaping the discipline now.
Designers
Alexandre Veillon, Continentale, Crude, Dos Mil Quatre-Cents Setanta Grams, Federico Fontanella, Ludovica Corti, Paul Hardy, Sofia Venetucci, Stephen Chan, Steven Dahlinger, Talia Luvaton, Traga Urška Sadar, Wenda Yang & Charlotte Yang, Wint
