The City of Manchester, once the birthplace of the 1st Industrial Revolution, is today a pioneering hub of the 4th Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), offering Industry 4.0 solutions in advanced materials, engineering, healthcare and social sciences. Indeed, the creation of some of the city's greatest academic institutions was a direct outcome of the industrial revolution, so it was something of a homecoming that the Sustainable Smart Manufacturing (S2M) Conference was hosted by The University of Manchester in 2019. The conference was jointly organised by The University of Manchester, The University of Lisbon and The Polytechnic of Leiria - the latter two bringing in a wealth of expertise in how Industry 4.0 manifests itself in the context of sustainably evolving, deeply-rooted cities. S2M-2019 instigated the development of 61 papers selected for publication in this book on areas of Smart Manufacturing, Additive Manufacturing and Virtual Prototyping, Materials for Healthcare Applications and Circular Economy, Design Education, and Urban Spaces.

The City of Manchester, once the birthplace of the 1st Industrial Revolution, is today a pioneering hub of the 4th Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), offering Industry 4.0 solutions in advanced materials, engineering, healthcare and social sciences. Indeed, the creation of some of the city's greatest academic institutions was a direct outcome of the industrial revolution, so it was something of a homecoming that the Sustainable Smart Manufacturing (S2M) Conference was hosted by The University of Manchester in 2019. The conference was jointly organised by The University of Manchester, The University of Lisbon and The Polytechnic of Leiria - the latter two bringing in a wealth of expertise in how Industry 4.0 manifests itself in the context of sustainably evolving, deeply-rooted cities. S2M-2019 instigated the development of 61 papers selected for publication in this book on areas of Smart Manufacturing, Additive Manufacturing and Virtual Prototyping, Materials for Healthcare Applications and Circular Economy, Design Education, and Urban Spaces.

This book gathers new empirical findings fostering advances in the areas of digital and communication design, web, multimedia and motion design, graphic design, branding, and related ones. It includes original contributions by authoritative authors based on the best papers presented at the 4th International Conference on Digital Design and Communication, Digicom 2020, together with some invited chapters written by leading international researchers. They report on innovative design strategies supporting communication in a global, digital world, and addressing, at the same time, key individual and societal needs. This book is intended to offer a timely snapshot of technologies, trends and challenges in the area of design, communication and branding, and a bridge connecting researchers and professionals of different disciplines, such as graphic design, digital communication, corporate, UI Design and UX design. Chapter "Definition of a Digital Tool to Create Physical Artifacts: The Case of the Gamers4Nature Project" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.