EDIT Napoli 2026’s open call reframes editorial design today
The open call for EDIT Napoli 2026 is now live, addressing designers and producers working across editorial design, material research and making, with a selection process focused on quality, sustainability and market readiness
The opening of the call for the eighth edition of EDIT Napoli 2026 marks a precise moment within the contemporary design landscape, where the act of applying is no longer a procedural step but becomes part of a broader positioning, one that reflects a shared urgency around editorial design as a space of production, authorship and critical thinking.
In this sense, the open call works as a first threshold, a filter that select projects and also begins to define a field, tracing the contours of a practice grounded in research, in the persistence of making and in a renewed attention to the relationship between material and narrative, where objects are conceived as carriers of meaning rather than isolated outcomes.
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Within this framework, the call explicitly addresses designers, studios, artisans, manufacturers and publishers who operate through processes that are both rigorous and situated, and who present pieces that are ready for the market without losing the density of their development, insisting on a form of serialized craftsmanship where repetition does not neutralize identity but rather reinforces it, allowing each object to exist within a system while maintaining a specific voice.
What emerges is a landscape of editorial design understood in an expanded sense, where the design is inseparable from its storytelling and where the construction of meaning unfolds through the careful articulation of materials, techniques and contexts.
Scheduled to take place from 9 to 11 October 2026, again at La Santissima, the cultural hub that faces the city panorama, EDIT Napoli 2026 builds its eighth edition starting precisely from this phase of selection, which becomes a curatorial act in itself, aligned with the direction outlined by the “Where Design Shapes” campaign. This open call already embodies it, translating its principles into criteria that privilege process over immediacy, depth over visibility and responsibility over formal resolution, suggesting that design cannot be reduced to image or trend but must be read through the conditions that produce it and sustain it over time.
The relevance of the call is further amplified by the position that the editorial fair has progressively constructed, operating as both a cultural and business platform capable of activating connections that extend beyond the temporal limits of the event. To enter through the open call means to access a network that connects companies, institutions and adjacent sectors, allowing projects to circulate within a system of exchanges that generates continuity and opportunity.
This dimension is not incidental but structural, and is reinforced by long-term collaborations with international organizations and institutions, including the renewed partnership with the Instituto Cervantes of Naples and the ongoing dialogue with academies and design schools, which together contribute to shaping pathways of professional growth and internationalization.
As Naples moves towards a phase of increasing international attention, the specific weight of the call situates participants within a context that is not only receptive but actively in transformation, and where design operates as both a cultural agent and an economic driver.
«EDIT Napoli 2026 is taking shape as a transitional and anticipatory edition, a prelude to 2027, which will be a key year for the city, already at the centre of growing international attention and momentum. As sectors such as hospitality and retail enter a phase of expansion, EDIT positions itself as a platform capable of catalyzing and activating connections between design culture and market opportunity. To be in Naples at this moment means to be present as the city becomes an increasingly strategic reference point for those working across design, production, hospitality and the creative industries. EDIT Napoli 2026 aims to accompany this shift through a programme that brings together the fair, cultural content and new opportunities for exchange». Emilia Petruccelli, Co-founder and CEO, EDIT Napoli.
At the same time, the open call implicitly reflects the transversal nature of the fair, which engages with fields such as hospitality, retail, fashion and food as active environments in which design operates and acquires relevance. The projects selected through this process are therefore positioned within a network that exceeds disciplinary boundaries, entering into dialogue with stakeholders capable of amplifying their impact and translating research into concrete applications. The, as always, presence of an international jury, with the addiction of new profiles, spanning from communication, to design and hospitality, further articulates this perspective, ensuring that the evaluation process remains aligned with a vision that is both critical and operative.
Within the structure of the call, Seminario returns as a parallel section dedicated to designers under 30 and to recently established companies, maintaining its role as a space for the identification and support of emerging practices, while framing them within a curatorial context that avoids isolation and instead situates them within a broader discourse. Here, the open call becomes not only a tool for selection but also a mechanism for recognition, capable of intercepting trajectories that are still in formation and of integrating them into a system that values continuity and exchange.
«For the 2026 edition, EDIT Napoli expands its programme of talks, workshops and round tables, opening a cross-cutting discussion on themes such as hospitality and the relationship between design, territories and professional communities ‘Where Design Shapes’ speaks of design as a shaping force that simultaneously allows itself to be shaped by the reality we inhabit. It is a reciprocal process, in which a project takes shape through dialogue with the cultural, productive and social context in which it is embedded. It is an invitation to slow down and to measure value not in aesthetics, but in responsibility». Domitilla Dardi, Co-founder and Curator, EDIT Napoli.
If the fair resists the format of a conventional exhibition, the open call can be read as its first curatorial layer, a device that gathers and organizes a plurality of languages before they take spatial form, and that already anticipates the structure of the fair, where exhibitions, talks and special projects coexist within a rhythm that encourages dialogue and critical reflection.
The EDIT CULT programme, together with the expanded schedule of discussions, workshops and round tables, extends this logic, reinforcing the idea that design is not only to be shown but also to be debated, questioned and contextualized.
In this perspective, the call for EDIT Napoli 2026 becomes more than an entry point, functioning as a critical moment in which the values of the fair are translated into practice, and where editorial design, in its expanded and material dimension, is positioned as a tool to interpret and construct the present.
About the author
Ludovica Proietti, journalist, design historian and curator, teaches in universities and curates events, always exploring projects with fresh, unconventional perspectives.
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