Art and technology - both have a place in standardization

A poster signed by FMR

It was ISO President Giacomo Elias who came up with the idea of asking a well-known artist to create the World Standards Day poster.

And it was hardly surprising that an Italian should suggest a meeting with a fellow-Italian to blend the world of art - and all that means in terms of creative imagination, artistic know-how and emotion - and the world of technology, functional systems, and standardization.

Giacomo Elias introduced us to Franco Maria Ricci, known by his initials FMR, and who lives in Milan. FMR is an art publisher whose books, issued in several languages, are considered objets d'art in their own right. Under the name FMR equally appears a very high-class magazine, whose title takes over the FMR initials.

What brought FMR to accept to create the poster? A very simple reason, in fact: FMR is as passionate about art as he is about the interrelations between science, technology and culture. We met him in Milan. Our theme: "International Standards for peace and prosperity" intrigued him, but he didn't feel the word "peace" should figure on the poster. A standard, he said, is first and foremost an agreement between people, the proportions of a building, the beauty of a plane, the quality of work executed according to the rules of the art, a fine-tuned musical chord, or perfect harmony between text and image.

FMR asked us if we could agree to a title for the poster of:"Harmony for prosperity", then went on to talk about Leonardo da Vinci - painter, engineer, anatomist, mathematician and inventor - and chose a polyhedron by Leonardo to visualize this harmony.

This is a "first" in the history of international standardization. The idea of Giacomo Elias will probably be graining ground, and we hope that other contemporary artists will in turn become interested in standardization.

In the meantime, may we heartily thank Franco Maria Ricci for offering the concept of this poster free to members of ISO and the IEC.