He wins a street-poster contest organised by the company Siam Di Tella for its fiftieth anniversary in the industrial sector. He is soon called to set up and run the Department of Graphic Design of the recently created Di Tella Institute, and does so until 1970. Little by little Humberto Rivas, Rubén Fontana, Juan Andralis, Roberto Alvarado, Carlos Soler and Norberto Coppola join the department. The designs created in it, which pooled the creativity of the group under conditions of absolute freedom, emerged from a wide range of motivations – the institute promoted artistic activities (theatre, music, visual arts), but also scientific ones like medicine and sociology – and reached a high level of excellence, to the point that they were praised by renowned international publications and are now part of the most important collections of graphic design in the world, like the one in MoMA, New York.

In spite of this close collaboration with the Di Tella, only once, in 1967, is Distéfano included in show exhibited there: Surrealism in Argentina.

He meets the poet and critic Aldo Pellegrini and discovers contemporary English painting, being particularly influenced by Alan Davie. He devotes his mornings to painting. In December he wins First Prize in the street-poster competition organized by the company Cinzano, receiving $100.000 pesos.