Emergency “Walked out this morning, I don’t believe what I saw, Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore…” sang The Police in Message in a Bottle—lyrics that now sound like a premonition of our present, in which it is hard to distinguish between Sting’s cries for help and the plastic that plagues our seas. The word “emergency” by definition indicates a critical and unforeseen situation that demands for immediate intervention: its etymology thus refers to a sudden state, for which a remedy must urgently be found. However, our times are marked by a number of continuous states of emergency – the exact opposite of exceptional events – of the most various kinds, which perpetuated themselves in time: from the trails of the recent pandemic, to the unresolved environmental and climatic crisis, as well as the humanitarian, social, geopolitical and economic crisis: a list large enough for filling this text by herself. Getting back to the meaning of this word, what makes us trouble is the total absence of reaction by our leaders, and this inactivity has been cyclically repeating itself in modern history. Antonio Gramsci noted this during his days in the prisons of the fascist regime: “the crisis consists in the fact that the old dies out but the new cannot come up: in this interregnum the most diverse morbid phenomena take place.” This interregnum is the new present which we have to get used to, in which the state of emergency, be it individual or global, is and will be a constant of our day. The good part of this scenario is that we slowly but definitely understood that we ourselves are the solution, each one of us, and we have to act on every front of this emergency. And if our leaders don’t seem to react, a positive message giving us hope has already come up among the last generation, as well shown by the research themes and projects developed by the students of our faculty. Starting from these premises the semester project invites students to explore the theme of emergency in its many forms: from the most intimate and personal experiences to large-scale collective and global crises, whether real or fictional. We will approach this through the tools of visual communication design: ranging from graphic and editorial design to typography and layout, from visual storytelling to the creation and post-production of both textual and visual content. Together, we will discover how these practices can evolve into powerful languages capable of giving voice to urgent and meaningful issues, making them more accessible and impactful, and thus contributing to raising public critical awareness of the multiple dimensions of emergency.