A writer and illustrator, Iela Mari (a pseudonym for Gabriela Ferrario) has worked on problems of visual communication, particularly those directed at children, carrying out research into the playful and cognitive activities of childhood. Other than her own books, she has written some books in collaboration with her husband Enzo Mari. The peculiarity of her books is that they are wordless or almost, and tell simple and poetic stories using the power of graphic refinement, without morals. Her main idea was to use shapes and colours in an almost abstract way, convinced that the thoughts of young children, at whom her work was aimed, proceeded by association, and that this could allow them to develop selective attention, while stimulating their imagination.