The bachelor thesis (ISIA Urbino, supervisor: Luciano Perondi) investigates the problem of accessibility within the graphical representation of space and takes the form of a tactile artefact accessible to the blind and visually impaired. The goal is to make the geography of an area available both in economic as well as content terms, thanks to the combination of a low-cost printing technique and a specific representative approach. The project consists of a set of tactile maps and a research programme that documents the design process and the first phase of testing with blind people.

Daria Shmitko (born in Saint Petersburg in 1982), currently lives in Milan and works as an information designer at the Milanese branch of the service design agency Attoma. She has been working as a freelance journalist from the age of 15 for the Art and Culture section of Petersburg’s local newspapers. Having achieved her master degree in Journalism, in 2006 she moved to Italy to attend courses in the Art, Music and Performance Department (Dams) at the University of Bologna. Between 2010 and 2014 she studied Graphic Design and Visual Communication at Isia Urbino/Italy, where she graduated with her thesis project about tactile maps for blind and visually impaired people. Since Fall 2016 she has been a doctoral student at the Graduate School of the Arts in Bern.

ISIA Urbino, Istituto Superiore per le Industrie Artistiche, is one the most important public institutions of higher education for teaching the communication design, graphic and editorial design in Italy. For more than forty years, it declares the ethical commitment in order to operate the communication design within social contexts and make it a privileged vehicle for culture and democracy.