Marcello Nizzoli attended the Scuola dei Belle Arti in Parma from 1910 until 1913. At the outset of his career, he was primarily a painter and around 1914 joined the Futurists. By 1918 Marcello Nizzoli had a studio of his own in Milan and would work mainly as a graphic designer and product designer. Particularly important for Marcello Nizzoli's career was his long-standing collaboration with Olivetti, for whom he worked from the 1930s. Olivetti established an advertizing division in 1932 to develop a uniform corporate identity with a recognizable corporate image and all the modern, functional Olivetti products were styled accordingly. Marcello Nizzoli first worked for Olivetti as a graphic designer and, in 1936, became chief consultant for Olivetti product design. Marcello Nizzoli designed a great many Olivetti typewriters and calculators, including the "Summa" (1940), "Divisumma 14" (1947), "Elettrosumma Duplex" (1954), "Audit 202" (1955), and "Tetraktys" (1956) calculators and the "Lexicon 80" (1948), "Lettery 22", "Lexikon 80 electric" (both 1950), and "Diaspron 82" (1959) typewriters. Marcello Nizzoli also worked for Olivetti as an architect, designing living quarters for Olivetti employees from 1948 and, in the 1950s, office buildings. For Necchi, another Italian firm, Marcello Nizzoli designed several handsomely styled yet functional sewing machines, including the "Mirella" (1957) and "Supernova Julia" (1961) models. Typical of Marcello Nizzoli's approach to product design is a notably organic, sculptural form as well as functional construction, which is optimized for industrial mass production of the machines.