Massimo and Lella Vignelli

Country

Italy / USA

Massimo Vignelli was born in 1931 in Milan and died in 2014 in New York. Lella Vignelli (Elena Valle) was born in 1934 in Udine and died in 2016 in Manhattan. They married in 1957. Lella studied architecture at IUAV in Venice, received an MIT scholarship in 1958, and worked at the SOM office in Chicago in 1959. At the beginning of the 1960s, they opened a joint office in Milan.

In 1965, they co-founded the Unimark International agency, and in 1971 they established Vignelli Associates in New York. Their work encompassed graphic design, visual identity, product design and furniture. From 1964, they designed plastic tableware for Heller; in 1964, the Saratoga sofa was created for Poltronova; in 1967, the American Airlines identity; and in 1972, the map and information system for the New York subway. From the mid-1960s, they worked with Knoll, for which they designed, among other pieces, the Handkerchief chair.

They received the Compasso d’Oro (1964 and 1989) and the National Design Award for lifetime achievement (2003). Their work is held in the collections of, among others, MoMA, Centre Pompidou and V&A, while since 2010 their archive has been held by the Vignelli Center for Design Studies at RIT.