His family moved to the Bronx and then to Coney Island, where he attended Abraham Lincoln High School, home of Leon Friend’s Art Squad.
The Art Squad exposed him to leading European Advertising artists whose inspiration would become the basis for his later work.
[1][2] Returning from the war, Federico's work was exhibited at A-D Gallery in 1946 where he met Will Burtin, the art director for Fortune magazine.
In the mid-1950s, he developed a relationship with Aaron Burns (at the Composing Room) who introduced him to new typefaces to experiment with in his work.
His work in the late 1950s and 60s was distinctly modern and the mark of American advertising’s “Creative Revolution.” [1][2][4] After a seven-year stint at Benton and Bowles, he started his own agency in 1967 with copywriter Dick Lord.