Lella Vignelli’s pragmatism and reason were the best balance for her collaboration with her visionary and idealist husband, Massimo. Lella and Massimo Vignelli worked together for over fifty years and created some of the most recognizable and remarkable designs in the public sphere, such as the signage for New York City’s subway system, for example. In the 1960s, they had their work displayed everywhere.

Lella was born in Udine, Italy, in 1934. She grew up with a family of architects that, alongside Massimo, whom she met in Milan in 1951, persuaded her to pursue the same area in the University of Venice’s School of Architecture, ignoring her dream to follow a career in journalism. 

Lella and Massimo married in 1957 and moved to America to study, travel and work as designers. They created the Vignelli Studio for Architecture and Design when they returned to Milan when their visas expired. Eight years after, they decided to return to New York, where they desired to combine America’s visual landscape with their European sensibility and modernist design. (Sellers, 2017) When Massimo was invited to incorporate Unimark as a co-founder, Lella was restricted from being part of it as well. It was only in 1971 that they created Vignelli Associates, later called Vignelli Studios, and they could finally work together.

Between both, there was never a distinction of talent. Lella usually had higher responsibility for three-dimensional design, while Massimo had for two-dimensional. However, they did not distinct any credit nor hierarchy between them. They shared the creative act, and every outcome resulted in their work as a team. 

For Lella, who had grown up in the calm and silent region of Udine, refinement was always better than excess and subtraction better than addition. They became, therefore, “heirs to the modernist ideals of less is more.” (Sellers, 2017)

The Vignellis worked as a multi-disciplinary team that moved between product design, graphics and furniture, which brought them many clients, from whom they received a high level of loyalty, that would be hard to achieve today.

Unfortunately, Lella’s health was prejudiced by Alzheimer, which eventually led to her death. Her husband Massimo published the book Designed by Lella Vignelli (2013) as a tribute and honour to her life and work. As he observed, Lella was “an inspiration to all women designers who forcefully stand on the power of their merits.” (Sellers, 2017) Lella Vignelli will always be remembered for her talent, passion, confidence and relentless drive.