Renato Zveteremich

Renato Zveteremich (Trieste, Italy, 1893 - Milan, Italy, 1951) was an Italian advertiser, known for his work during the 1930s for the advertising office of the Olivetti typewriter manufacturer.

His art direction for Olivetti, started in 1931, was characterised by an experimental approach similar to that of a graphic laboratory, with multiple parallel projects. For attaining this goal, he employed young and promising designers such as Xanti Schawinsky, Guido Modiano, the architects Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini, and later Marcello Nizzoli and Giovanni Pintori. In this method for marketing, the styles of the different creators, who contributed to create the corporate culture, combined in a coral and multidisciplinary style, in opposition to the fragmented marketing approach that was popularised by American advertising agencies from the 1960s. He loved to see himself as well as a pioneer of modern architecture, as he had taken part on the argumentation in favour of Italian rationalism alongside Persico and Pagano.

Between 1941 and 1943, Zveteremich wrote a series of think pieces for the Domus architecture magazine, where he expressed his views on the world of advertising, analysing its links with art and with political propaganda. When he was writing his last article for that magazine, political events such as Mussolini's liberation and Nazi occupation had affected him deeply. This situation forced him to change his words, that had previously been directed towards the defense of an absolute aesthetic ideal. His texts also predicted the situation of the Italian advertising field, in which advertising [will have] writers and poets, painters, designers, artists, photographers, graphic designers at its service.

In 1938, Zveteremich was succeeded at his position at Olivetti by the poet engineer Leonardo Sinisgalli. However, his art direction influenced Olivetti's graphic style durably, even during the post-war period.