Tootoom started several years ago, in 2009. Or maybe even in 2000.
I was a student at the Design Academy when Fabrizio – who was also studying there – and I met for the first time. We only needed a few papers and a couple of exams together to discover our affinity and common vision. At the end of our studies, we took different paths but were both certain that our paths would cross again in the future.
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We lost track of each other for a few years, until one morning I decided to resign from the magazine of Computer Arts I was in charge of. I picked up my phone and called Fabrizio. “So? Shall we give it a go? ”
He simply said “Yeah!” – not a word more.
We decided to open our advertising agency: we wanted it to be special. We wanted it to reflect our dreams and our interests. So, we decided that instead of promoting our agency as everyone else by showing on our website our credentials and track-record and how good we are at selling ice creams, soft drinks, cars and phone services, we would do something unique, we would tackle an issue that we really cared about, one of those problems that no one pays you to solve, but the solution of which you know – as a human being – that could make the world a little better. We wanted to make art. We wanted to give everyone an artistic experience, one of those that does not have a price because those who don’t understand it do not want to pay for it and those who understand it know that no price is enough.
Working in communication and being a designer and a musician, and hence being used to non verbal communication, we soon realized that today communication has become faster and easier than ever, but understanding each other has not become any easier. Misunderstandings are even more common than before, partly because of the limitations of digital communication, which simplifies everything but loses all the nuances and partly because words that are repeated endlessly tend to lose their meaning and become irrelevant, as any good communicator knows.
Fabrizio and I did also realise that when we listen to music (even if sung in a foreign language or instrumental) we instinctively understand what it is about. When we look at a painting we feel emotions, maybe not all exactly the same emotions, but we feel something deep and true.
We all have a common human nature but each of us is also the result of our own experiences. Each of us is unique and we should take this into account when we communicate.
To be able to communicate everything, always, profoundly, and with anyone. To recognize the difference between us and the others, even the gap between who we are and who we were. To recreate that harmony when everyone sings in their own voice, but everyone is part of the choir.
This is what Fabrizio and I decided to achieve when we opened our agency.
It took us a long time and a lot of effort to define and develop all the details but didn’t take us long to brush the broad picture of what we wanted to create, and we quickly realized two fundamental issues:
But now the time has come to start communicating in a new way.
