Marcello Minale

Early life

Marcello Minale was born into an Italian naval family in Tripoli in 1938, the son of a colonial administrator and former naval captain who became a local city mayor in Aziziya, Libya.

Education and formative influences

After studying art and architecture at the Technical Institute of Naples, Minale won his first assignments for an architectural magazine in Milan and for a Scandinavian company in charge of interior design and graphic design in Rome.

Minale worked briefly for the Young & Rubicam advertising agency in Rome before moving to Finland in 1961 to be part of the golden age of Scandinavian design working firstly as a designer for Taucker and then as Art director for Mackkinointi Uiherjuuri – both Finnish advertising agencies.

It was at the Industrial Design School in Helsinki where Minale was introduced to Scandinavian Modernism – amongst his seminal influences were the Finnish designers Tapio Wirkkala and Alvar Aalto whose style was a world away from the Baroque Italian household in which he had grown up.

In 1962, Minale came to Britain to work as a designer in London, again for Young & Rubicam and met his future partner Brian Tattersfield.

Two years later, the duo formed Minale Tattersfield during a period that coincided with a new generation of young London design firms including Wolff Olins and Fletcher/Forbes/Gill. These fledgling firms were jettisoning the old commercial-artist tradition in favour of a more simple and pared-down style of visual communication much influenced by Bill Bernbach in New York.

Minale sought to raise the profile of the firm's early work. The firm introduced its own corporate logo – the "Scribble", a loose, free-form, pencil-drawn counterblast to the formal graphic conventions of the period. With Tattersfield focusing on different aspects of the business, the partnership expanded its activities and client base. Its client list grew to include: Thames TV, Kodak, London Transport, British Airports Authority, Nestle, Harrods, NatWest, Armani, Premier League, Eurostar, Imperial War Museum, International Cricket Council, Sydney Olympics and many more.

Away from design, Minale's two great passions were his family and his rowing:

Minale was twice married: first in 1963 (source: freebmd.org.uk) (dissolved 1974), to Ebba Oljemark, with whom he had a son, Marcello; and second in 1975, to Roberta Broadbridge, with whom he had two sons Manlio, a brand consultant and Massimo, who is studying architecture at Cambridge.

An international medal winner in rowing at the 1956 European Championships, Minale's love of the sport remained firm, becoming the chairman and President of the Tideway Scullers School between 1995 and 2000.