To Antonio Boggeri
For almost half a century, from 1935 to 1980, Studio Antonio Boggeri in Milan was considered the most outstanding graphic design studio in Italy. Boggeri was a true pioneer. He was the first to realize that graphic design, more than informing, had to allure and surprise. He said that being a designer is like playing the violin, whereas working in an advertising agency is like playing the trombone. Working with Boggeri was a pivotal experience for me. Before beginning to work on a project, he reviewed and analyzed all that had been made the previous years on the same topic by the best designers in the world. He especially admired the Swiss style though he found it too cold. It was necessary to break the monotony of the spider web to include the fly. He believed that in order to be perceived, the problem of communication must be solved in the context of ideological, social and technological conditions of the moment, melting creativity with good ideas.
His enthusiasm and passion for graphic design defined his life, and he was always willing to share that knowledge with others. He was a man of enormous talent and great intellect. Antonio Boggeri has been one of the undisputed great figures of Italian graphic design during the last century, and a most generous mentor. I am verygrateful for our time together. Armando Milani
100 logos the power of the symbol
Armando Milani foreword by Roger Remington and Massimo Vignelli
Foreword
My tribute to Armando Milani Armando Milani is both my friend and one of my favorite graphic designers in the world. We first met in New York several years ago at Massimo Vignelli’s studio. Armando’s warm manner, great personal and professional integrity and wonderful graphic design work immediately made for a strong bond between us. Subsequently, we have realized an international graphic design workshop together, visited each other on both sides of the Atlantic, and, along the way, became solid friends. He has visited my school, Rochester Institute of Technology, on several occasions, to lecture in a mostmeaningful way to my students. The dialogue and friendship continues. When viewing Armando’s graphic design, one is struck with several immediate reactions: The posters and identity work show a powerful contemporary realization of El Lissitzky’s credo from long ago that a piece of graphic design is effective if it “first seduces the eye and then addresses the intelligence.” The graphic design work is consistently based on sound formal visual aesthetic values. However, it is not just form for form’s sake but form created to solve a client’s problem or communicate clearly a strong message to the audience. His work is, time after time, centered on a compelling concept. And the idea is shaped in such a way by the form that it communicates meaning to the viewer.
On occasion he loves to draw the observer into his work by using ambiguity as a theme. This leads to making his message and the form used memorable. That end, indeed, is a noble achievement for any effective graphic design. There is a balance evident between his graphic design solutions for business clients and those devoted to humanistic causes. I respect highly his professional dedication to the philosophy that the designer has a responsibility to focus energy on alleviating human needs with his or her talents. His posters, at once, enhance the manmade environment and support critical humanitarian causes. Armando is dedicated to making contributions which advance the graphic design field. His commitment to the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) and its activities is an impressive example of one designer, moving beyond himself, to better the profession and all designers. I applaud Armando’s documentation of his work in this book. It is important for the graphic design community to know about and, as I have, come to love Armando Milani’s graphic design achievements. Roger Remington Vignelli Distinguished Professor of Design. Rochester Institute of Technology. Rochester NY USA, September 2008.
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Foreword
Making the intangible, tangible.
Every time that I have to design a logo or a symbol, I think of Armando, and wish he would be here. Better then anybody else, he has the great ability to express an entire world with a single mark and even more beyond it. He plays with the nature or the meaning of what he has to express; he plays with the initials of a name; he combines one with the other; he creates metaphors, he plays with type; he twists and manipulates it until the final synthesis emerges, clear, logical, apparently effortless. This is not the byproduct of labor. This is the output of genius, the result of a creative process,honed by years of refinement of a specific sensibility, the one that Armando has by nature and the one that has been sharpened by endless observation of our culture. Armando, like me, is extremely focused on design. Perhaps because of that, our conversations are always centered on design issues, minute obsessive observations on details of the world around us. A typical conversation between us, looking at anything, would be: “Should it be bigger? Smaller? A little more to the left or the right? What if? Do you think it is the right type? What about that color ?�
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He shows a constant attention, measuring the effectiveness of the detail versus the whole, a continuous verification of the consistency of a visual language on any given thing. Armando has a great lyrical intuition. His decisive poetic trait guides his approach to a problem, a lovely way to investigate an object, a subtle search for something beyond the surface, an effort to reach the invisible, to make tangible what nobody else has reached before. And then, like an explosion, everything is loud and clear in front of your eyes. This book shows you his incredible talent and ability to reach memorable solutions. Armando is a great professional, his involvement in a project is total and wants to cover every detail of an identity program. I had the pleasure of working with him, many years ago, even before he acquired the professional status that he enjoys today. Even then his talent was there, his sensibility to details was totally expressed and it was a great pleasure to work with him, a continuous escalation to do things better.
Armando the poet is talking, lifting the “A� from WAR to PEACE. This book is a great testimonial to the development and creative talent of one of the best designers in the world. Look at every project with attention and you will discover that the same intensity is at the core of a poster or a logo since both express a plurality of meanings in a direct, powerful way. Every design done by Armando is like a logo, an unique opportunity to make a memorable sign. And in that he is a Master. Massimo Vignelli New York, February 10, 2006.
Today, as then, his enthusiasm and generosity guide him throughout the project, and it is a pleasure to hear him describing it to you. All of a sudden, things that your mind has never thought, become visible, a new experience touches your soul.
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Introduction
The logo. I find designing a logo especially satisfying because a logo lasts over time, unlike a brochure, annual report or an advertising page which lasts a few months, or a year or two at the most. Its very rewarding walking on the street, travelling in the subway, looking at the TV or leafing through a magazine, to recognize a logo that you designed many years ago and that is still internationally diffused. A logo is a sign. It has to be concise and versatile in order to be suitable for different kinds of printing, including websites and materials for signage, gadgets, means of transport and the various uses related to corporate Identity. A logo consists of a geometric, abstract, or stylized pattern; it can be made up by a letter of the alphabet or a combination of two or three letters such as IBM. Sometimes the name of the client or product becomes a logo, such as Coca Cola.
The logo confirms the dominance of the visual over the verbal. It must be immediately readable and communicate the values and traditions of the company, which are the basis of its corporate culture. The logo must express a semantic ambiguity that increases the interest of the viewer through mental associations, some of which are subconscious, and very powerful. These associations will improve the perception and memorability of the logo. Only when all these requirements have been fulfilled, can we say that a logo is completely successful.
The point is that a logo must be unique, easy to recognize and remember; above all, it must be appropriate to the company since, far from having an aesthetic value only, it represents the client’s profession and business.
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The rhythm of one logo.
The power of symbol.
My logotype, “Uomo Moda,” (pag. 91) caused different and very interesting reactions. In New York, my friend Ornette Coleman, the great master of jazz, looked at the logo and told me that I could have been a very good musician. In Italy, the designer and expert in music, Carlo Fiore, explained the music that exists in the logo in this way: Uomo Moda, in Italian “Men’s Fashion”, it is a perfect example of graphic design “that sounds,” where the rhythm stays in the geometry of the black square which encloses another one rotated at a 45 degree angle with the text inside, a geometry of regular and repeated interval, therefore, rhythmic.
About 15,000 years ago, cave men were not able to read or write, but by observing the tracks of the bear they could imagine the entire animal and prepare for hunting. In their minds, a graphic process was realizing, from the sign symbol of the track to the entire image of the animal, without the help of the written word.
The same rhythm is accelerated by the square with the letter inside, also divided in other four square syllables. The colors are also rhythmic; the different contrast between white and red visually reproduce the cutting of the words without the support of the graphic sign. Rhythmic and musical, to conclude, is the possibility to read the logo horizontally and vertically, while the eye and the mind play a duet under the white and red reflectors of the metropolitan night.
Today, it is highway signage that communicates within a matter of a few split seconds, the impending danger to a driver. When I design a logo or a poster, I follow this same criteria in the constant research of synthesis for immediate communication. Indeed, Confucius wrote that it was not words or laws that rule the world but signs and symbols. If I write “mela” which means apple in Italian, 60 million Italians will understand me. If I write “apple,” half of the world that speaks English will understand me. But if I show the symbol of the apple, the entire world will be able to recognize it. This is the power of the symbol. Armando Milani Milan, March 15, 2017.
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Client Acme Communication New York
Description Public Relations
Year 1987
12
Client Alteco London
Description Oil Distribution
Year 1992
13
Client American Association Development Miami
Description Real Estate Company
Year 1994
22
Client Accento Milan
Description Public Relations
Year 1998
23
Client 3B Milan
Description 3 Architects Group
Year 1978
24
Client Vistosi Venice
Description Cactus Glass Puzzle Games
Year 1978
25
Client Butterfly Denver
Description Boutique
Year 2005
28
Client Cosmos Milan
Description Timber trade
Year 1985
29
Client France Amerique Paris
Description Cultural Association (proposal)
Year 2003
36
Client Gas Company London
Description Gas distributions
Year 1982
37
Client Impresa Ventura Milan
Description Constructions Company
Year 1977
42
Client Istituto Vitamine Roche Milan
Description Pharmaceutical Company
Year 1975
43
Client M6 New York
Description Group of 6 corporations
Year 1984
44
Client Man Milan
Description Continuous printing
Year 1970
45
Client Friends of Frank Sinatra Los Angeles
Description 100 years celebration
Year 2015
58
Client Siba London/ Milan
Description Water Depuration
Year 1995
59
Client AGI Alliance Graphique International San Paolo
Description Annual Congress in Brazil
Year 2014
82
Client Hope for Iran Teheran
Description For the reunification of Iran
Year 2009
83
Client Sambonet Milan
Description Modular objects
Year 1975
92
Client ICE New York
Description Uomo Moda (Men Fashion)
Year 1990
93