Marcello Nizzoli

Marcello Nizzoli ( born January 2, 1887 in Boretto, Reggio Emilia, Italy; † 31 July 1969, Camogli, Genoa Province ) was an Italian architect, industrial designer and graphic designer, specializing in commercial art.

Life and work

Marcello Nizzoli studied from 1910 to 1913 at the Scuola di Belle Arti in Parma architecture, painting and graphics. He began working as a painter and joined the Italian futurist. In 1918 Nizzoli founded a graphic design studio in Milan. He began to work in various fields as a commercial artist. He designed for example silk scarves with patterns in the Art Deco style. These silk scarves, he exhibited at the Biennale in Monza in 1923 and in Paris in 1925.

He also designed posters, among other things, the company Campari and Maga in the 1920s. Since the 1930s Nizzoli worked as a graphic designer for Olivetti. He designed the advertising, posters and corporate identity for Olivetti and also worked as a product designer. In 1936 he was appointed head of product design at Olivetti. He created the design for many typewriters and calculators, but also for paper knives and handles for Olivetti equipment and sewing machines from Olivetti. His most famous designs are those of the calculating machines "Summa ", 1940; " Divisumma 14", 1947; . " Elettrosumma Duplex", 1954 and " Quanta " The typewriters the " Lexicon 80 " belong in 1948, the " Lettera 22" and the " Lexicon 80 electric", 1950 and " Diaspron 82 ", 1959, his well-known designs. Nizzoli designed its products always so that they were optimized for one for the industrial manufacturing process, at the same time showed a typical for him organic, almost sculptural, but at the same functional product design. He also designed for the company Necchi sewing machines, for example, including the " Mirella " 1957 and the "Supernova Julia ", 1961.

Marcello Nizzoli also worked as an architect. He designed from 1948 apartments and housing for the employees of Olivetti. In the 1960s he built office building for Olivetti.

In 1964, some of Marcello Nizzoli products at the documenta III in Kassel in the Department of Industrial Design and posters of him were shown for Campari and Olivetti in the Department of graphics. Nizzoli worked on numerous Triennale of Milan as Exhibition Director. For his design for the " Lettera 22" in 1954, he received the Compasso d' Oro. In 1959, the " Lettera 22" was "one hundred best-designed products of our time " by the Illinois Institute of Technology as one of the.

Literature and sources

• Documenta III. International Exhibition; Catalogue: Volume 1: Paintings and Sculpture; Volume 2: Hand drawings; Volume 3: Industrial design, graphic; Kassel / Cologne 1964