Massimo Vignelli became co-founder and design director of Unimark International Corporation. With Lella Vignelli, he estalished the offices of Vignelli Associates in 1971, and Vignelli Designs in 1978.
M
assimo Vignelli, born in milan, he studied architecture in Milan and Venice. He travelled to the United States from 1957 to 1960 on fellowships from Towle Silversmiths in Massachusetts and The Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. in 1960, with Lella Vignelli, he established the Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture in Milan. in 1965,
His work includes graphic and corporate identity programs, publication designs, architectural graphics, and exhibition, interior, furniture, and consumer product designs for many leading american and european companies and institutions. Vignelli has had his work exhibited and entered in the permanent collections of several museums; notably, the museum of modern art, the metropolitan museum of art, the brooklyn museum, and the cooperhewitt -museum in new york. He has taught and lectured on design in the united states and abroad. he is a past president of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGl) and the
American Institute of Graphic arts (AlGA), a vice president of the architectural league, and a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). The head office of vignelli associates is located in new york. Universally considered one of the great design practitioners of our time, Massimo is also kind. He is a true gentleman. Not content with anything less than elegant, Massimo is erudite, exceedingly well mannered, charming, cute even. Yes, I said it: Massimo Vignelli is cute. He is also remarkably forgiving. When he left a message alerting me of our missed meeting, he also reassured me it was quite all right, and requested we reschedule. Despite my nerves, our subsequent meeting was delightful and we spent many hours talking about love, his wife and partner Leila Vignelli, the staying power of the American Airlines logo, vulgarity, his penchant for the color black and the typeface Bodoni, his protĂŠgĂŠ Michael Bierut, the friendship he had with Alan Fletcher, the perfect sofa and over fifty years in the business of design.
Debbie Millman: How important, if at all, is writing to your work?
Massimo Vignelli: Well, I write
all the time. Of course, my English is limited and my writing follows my English. But somehow the writing is better; at least there is less of an accent! I am a maniac about being semantically correct. I find that when I write, I automatically look for the perfect word more often than I do when I speak. I want to have the exact word that says exactly what I mean as precisely as possible.
DM: Why did you choose to live
York. And it is not even beautiful. There are hundreds, thousands of other cities that are much more beautiful. But there is only one New York.
in black. This sofa’s black. The chair is black.
DM: What do you think contrib-
MV: Yes. Always. Always.
MV: It’s the energy. It’s the way
DM: So when did you make the decision in your life that you wanted to be a designer?
utes to making it so special?
people walk, it’s the way people talk. It’s the way people live. You know: In New York, people dress in black all the time.
DM: Why do you think so many people wear black in New York?
MV: Because of the image.
in New York?
DM: How would you describe it?
MV: It’s a long story. The quick
MV: To begin with, black has
answer is that we started the company with some friends here in the U.S., and we opened an office in New York. The person who was supposed to run the office got sick. I was in Milan at the time and I was commuting back and forth. I got tired of flying over twice a month, and so we [Vignelli and his wife, Leila] decided to come over and run the office for a while and then go back. We’re still here after 40 years. [Laughs.] We’re still here. New York is a fabulous city. It’s like a magnet. I can’t leave anymore. There is nothing that can compare to New
class. It’s the best color. There is no other color that is better than black. There are many others that are appropriate and happy, but those colors belong on flowers. Black is a color that is manmade. It is really a projection of the brain. It is a mind color. It is intangible. It is practical. It works 24 hours a day. In the morning or afternoon, you can dress in tweed, but in the evening, you look like a professor who escaped from college. Everything else has connotations that are different, but black is good for everything. My house is covered
DM: Are all your clothes black? Do you wear all black?
MV: When I was 14 years old, extremely early in my life. DM: What happened? MV: I went to a house of a friend of mine, and his mother had just finished redecorating. And all of sudden, I discovered that somebody was responsible for doing these kinds of things. Nothing happened by itself. That fascinated me. I went home and started to design. I read books and magazines about these things so I became more educated. And I got more and more involved, so that by the time I was 18, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. DM: Have you always been so driven? MV: Yes. It’s amazing, I have tremendous passion. Tremendous. Curiosity and passion. My passion is bigger, but my curiosity is equally as strong.
DM: You never had any aspirations to do anything else? It was always to be a designer? MV: Exactly. I never thought of doing anything else. Not once in my life. Every book that I was reading, every preference was devoted to architecture and design. No technology or philosophy books. Very few novels. I don’t have a literal mind. DM: How would you describe your mind? MV: It is visual. DM: You have a visual mind? MV: Absolutely. DM: What do you think is the dif-
ference between a literary mind and a visual mind? MV: A visual mind is interested in anything that you see, and a literary mind is interested in anything you think. A literary mind is interested in people. A visual mind is interested in things, objects, nature. This doesn’t mean that you look and don’t think. Of course, you do that, too. But a literary mind is more prone to thinking than looking visually. They like to read. They like to analyze things from a psychological point of view. Writers like this write about isolation, and some write about being together. Each one investigates one action of the mind. And the mind, being as complex as it is, is an endless
source of investigation. DM: Do you feel your work is immediately identifiable as your work? Do you feel you have a style? MV: Yes and no. After many years of exposure, in some ways it is. My work has a certain discipline, a rigor, and a minimalist expression. I use a very limited choice of colors. [Laughs.] Primarily black and red. To me, black is black and red is color. That’s it. DM: And what about your preference for Bodoni? MV: Bodoni is one of the most elegant typefaces ever designed. When I talk about
elegance, I mean intellectual elegance. Elegance of the mind.
beauty. It’s the same with vulgarity, in a sense.
DM: How would you define elegance of the mind?
DM: What do you think design is really about?
MV: I would define intellectual elegance as a mind that is continually refining itself with education and knowledge. Intellectual elegance is the opposite of intellectual vulgarity. We all know vulgarity very well. Elegance is the opposite.
MV: Number one, design is a profession that takes care of everything around us. Politicians take care of the nation and fix things — at least they are supposed to. Architects take care of buildings. Designers take care of
second priority is to decrease the amount of vulgarity around by replacing the vulgarity with things that are more refined. When we work with clients, we make it quite clear from the beginning that we don’t intend to create vulgar things. Most of the time we don’t even have to say this; when a client comes in, they know what we are doing, and they want us to do things
DM: I have to ask: What would you consider to be vulgar? MV: Vulgarity is something underneath culture and education. Anything that is not refined. There are manifestations of primitive cultures or ethnic cultures that could be extremely refined and elegant, but don’t belong to our kind of refinery or culture. Culture is the accumulation of at least 10,000. You can really say that intellectual elegance is the by-product of refinement. One of the greatest things about vulgarity is that it tends to continuously disappear. My friend Umberto Eco wrote a book about beauty, and now he’s writing a book about ugliness. He told me the last time I saw him that it was much more difficult to write a book about ugliness than to write one about
everything around us. Everything that is around us, this table, this chair, this lamp, this pen has been designed. All of these things, everything has been designed by somebody. I think that it is my responsibility to make the work better than it is. That is my number one priority. The
for them in this way. So we don’t have too much to fight over! But even in the client discussions, they can see that this is what we want to do. So what is design all about? It is to decrease the amount of vulgarity in the world. It is to
make the world a better place to be. But everything is relative. There is a certain amount of latitude between what is good, what is elegant, and what is refined that can take many, many manifestations. It doesn’t have to be one style. We’re not talking about style, we’re talking about quality. Style is tangible, quality is intangible. I am talking about giving to everything that surrounds us a level of quality. DM: What’s your best quality?
DM: What about your worst? What is your worst one? MV: My worst one? Ego. DM: You have a big ego? MV: Yes, I have a big ego. (laughs) DM: Have you ever been in analysis or therapy? MV: No. No. I am happy. I don’t have psychological traumas to overcome. One of the great advantages of being so concentrated on your work is that it is all there is. Everything I do comes into this and enriches me. Everything, even every book I read enriches me.
must
MV: I don’t even know if I have any. Nothing. Which one of them I have?
solv
a prob th
MV: A good designer that I respect is Milton [Glaser]. I really like his way of thinking. He’s extremely talented. Brilliant mind, terrific mind. And of course, my Michael. Michael Bierut. My favorite designer right now is in Germany. His name is Pierre Mendell. Look for his work. He is a great one. He has such a great ability to synthesize. You were asking what I admire: I’m
interested
in “essence” — my major aim is really to get to the essence of the problem. And just throw away everything that’s not pertinent to it. At the end of a project, my work should be the projection of that experience, the essence of effect. It’s a habit that you get into.
Then,
ve
DM: Who do you feel is doing good work right now?
blem. he design is
exciting”
DM: Is there anything that you haven’t done that you want to do? MV: Oversee the redesign of the Vatican. Such a joke! Can you imagine? The Pope as a client! That’d be lovely, turning to the Pope and saying, “Well, the symbol is okay. We can live with that, but everything else has to go.”