Can football faith build a collective memory and identity?

IM Storytelling is an editorial product dealing with football, fans and visual identity. The project stems from the desire to investigate the direction in which football is going, and more specifically the case study of Inter Milan. The world of football is evolving more and more into a reality influenced by economic interests, in which clubs are structured as solid brands, with ambitions and objectives that go beyond the purely football and game context. Inter Milan follows this trend when it announces the renewal of its identity in 2021. The project presented here investigates how, after this renewal, the club’s history takes a strong back seat, in favour of a total drive towards the future, according to a strategy in which the fan is no longer the club’s sole and priority user. The thesis also aims to highlight the value of shared historical memories in the construction of the identity of an extremely popular football club like Inter Milan. These memories are today fragmented, scattered, kept alive almost exclusively by collectors, nostalgic lovers of a past that, without them, would soon be forgotten. Within this historical heritage, two enthusiasts were contacted: from their collections emerge stories of fans, but also of visual identity. Idols and legends are mixed with a strong graphic freedom in the way Inter is understood: a visual identity far from the hyperstructured one of today, it manifests itself in a creative drive from the people, from society, a free, participated and colourful expression. Official and unofficial mingle, the constant is only one: nerazzurro.