Guided by Sound Design tutor Emiliano Zelada, the students worked on the sonic translation of covers, photographic editorials, and selected articles from thirty years of D. In line with the interdisciplinary approach of the Multimedia Arts programme, the project fostered a direct dialogue with Martelli, who supported the listening, review, and final selection phase. The outcome is a collection of six audio tracks that will be published in the anniversary issue of the magazine and made accessible via QR code.

This collaboration represents an important opportunity for experimentation for the young talents of Istituto Marangoni Firenze, who were challenged to engage with the visual and narrative legacy of one of the most influential publications in the Italian editorial landscape. Through a process of interpretation that combines aesthetics, sound, and personal research, each student created a composition capable of dialoguing with the source image, transforming it into a new and immersive listening experience.

All the audio tracks are available directly in the article by D – la Repubblica.

The piece is inspired by the article 25 minutes of eternity. Staten Island, round trip by Gabriele Romagnoli, with photographs by Nguan. Having grown up in an urban environment and visited New York several times, the artist chose to create sounds that reflect both the city’s frenetic pace and the moments of calm that occasionally permeate the urban landscape. The everyday sounds of the city and public transportation are contrasted with the fast-paced rhythm of the drums and the stillness of the piano.

Inspired by Matteo Bussola’s article Tradimento and the accompanying photograph by Stefan Dotter, depicting a solitary figure seated at a bar in backlight, this track explores solitude, melancholy, and the quiet weight of wanting to please others. Drawing from the intimate atmosphere of a jazz bar, the composition blends delicate melodies and ambient textures to evoke introspection and emotional isolation. The piece moves between vulnerability and composure, capturing fleeting moments and sensations.

The piece is inspired by Sam Winston’s cover for D, where words and texts lose their original structure and form new shapes and meanings. Letters and words begin to find their place independently and fragmentedly, gradually aligning as a melody emerges. This process of deconstruction leads to reconstruction, ending on an open note, suggesting new possibilities. The title refers to the moment when a creative block dissolves in the morning light, as ideas begin to take shape again.

Velvet Grain is a repetitive melody inspired by the cover D Corpo libero, where collage techniques merge fragmented images of skin and bodies into new forms. The sound rotates around itself, echoing the texture of skin caught in the act of transforming into image and collage. Transitional sounds blur the seams between audio fragments and visual references, guiding the listener beyond the threshold where matter becomes memory.

This electronic track is built on a slow, airy structure, where repetition becomes a method. The artist emphasizes how identity is a layered composition. The inspiration comes directly from D la Repubblica, interpreted as a choral space capable of hosting different voices, aesthetics, and perspectives without reducing them to a single narrative. The result is a chorus of autonomous presences that coexist—even in dissonance—finding form and value precisely through their coexistence.

This sound piece aims to create a tactile, textured atmosphere—sharp, crackling, and resonant. It seeks to envelop the listener in a sonic landscape of vibrations and reverberations. The track is inspired by Fabrizio Ferri’s photographs for the interview Senza Fiato, showing models wrapped in packaging materials and polystyrene elements emerging from their mouths, with plastic sheets limiting their breath. These images evoke the vertigo of oxygen deprivation, and the composition translates the imagined noise and sensations into an evocative sonic experience.