A small crowd gathered for Italian designer Franco Achilli Tuesday night.

Achilli discussed various Italian designs from the 1950s era at the Jack Arends Visual Arts Building.

The 1950s for Italian design was much like American design for this era, Archilli said.

This era was very “space age” with designers trying to take creativity and function and mold it into an aesthetically pleasing piece of … whatever.

Achilli showed slides of various items from the time ranging from household appliances to architecture to scooters to toys and hats. He also showed pictures of furniture and vases from this time period. He was only at NIU to give this lecture about Italian design.

Achilli said the ’50s was a paradox of Italian creativity.

“The new era needs everything, so everything must be new,” Achilli said.

Achilli will be at NIU until Friday and will be in the Visual Arts Building today and Friday. He will also be a tour guide in Milan for the art students who are visiting Italy this summer for their study abroad program.

Achilli was visiting Jon Ashmann, design and media arts professor. He and Achilli will lead the Italian study abroad program.

“Achilli is my right-hand man,” Ashmann said.

“I am a graphic design student, and I am going to Italy for the design program,” said junior Holly Christopher. “I came to see what Italian graphic design was all about.”

Some of the students went to the lecture because they wanted to see what exactly Italian design was about.

“I am going to Italy this summer to study, so I wanted to get an idea of who the designers are, what exactly Italian design was, and get an idea of the culture before I left,” said Jennifer Webb, a junior graphic design major.

Achilli’s work can be viewed at his Web site at www.agdesign.it.