Pizzanelli wins hologram award

David Pizzanelli has won the Brian Monaghan Award for Business Innovation at this year’s Excellence in Holography Awards.

The award recognizes his role in the International Hologram Manufacturers Association (IHMA) and in the development of the hologram image register (HIR).

“David has been a driving force behind the Hologram Image Register since its inception in the early 1990s,” said IHMA Chairman Mike Messmer. “He has been heavily involved with the IHMA, providing guidance on the redesign of the HIR forms in 2007 and he is now advising on the 2014 rebuild of the system.”

Pizzanelli started his career in the hologram industry in the early 1980s, as a holographer at Hollusions, a small British company making silver halide holograms. He then joined Jonathan Ross and Nigel Abraham at See 3 Holograms, where they developed a method to make embossed holograms.

He left See 3 to study the postgraduate holography course at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1994 after doing most of the course part-time, after he joined Light Impressions in 1990 as sales and marketing manager.

For Light Impressions he built an impressive portfolio of orders, including several Chinese tobacco packs, Vietnamese banknotes and numerous well-known brands.

The Holography Awards recognize outstanding industry achievement and are presented annually to organizations who have introduced the most innovative or commercially viable hologram product or technique over the past year.