Marcello Minale – Obituary

Marcello Minale was a good man. I first met him while judging the British Design & Art Direction Awards more years ago than I care to remember.

Marcello Minale was a good man. I first met him while judging the British Design & Art Direction Awards more years ago than I care to remember.

He was kind, gentle, larger than life, always enthusiastic about design and never short of an opinion. His name is up there with Robert Brownjohn, Bob Gill and Alan Fletcher as the most respected of their craft.

The work of Minale Tattersfield & Partners was always honest – a simple idea executed with directness and never overworked. Its scribble logo was the epitome of this and Marcello loved to tell the story of the cleaner who industriously and proudly scraped off the freshly screened scribble from the window of its then, new offices in Putney, thinking it was graffiti.

Some of my favourite pieces are Alitalia’s 20th birthday poster, a cake with a runway of candles; Fox Exhibition Contractors, a random grouping of three-dimensional letterforms; Octopus Production, an eight-armed workman; and latterly the identity system for the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

I last met Marcello at the Royal College of Art during the D&AD Annual book launch. Slapping his arm round me with that huge grin, he said “How are you Glenn? Good to see we’re both still here. You know, I still love design, and will keep on going until I tire of it, or it tires me.” Of course, that would never have happened as he always brought a freshness to our industry especially with that enthusiastic sparkle in his smile.

Start the discussionStart the discussion
  • Post a comment

Latest articles