MASSIMO
VIGNELLI Graphic.Interior.Architectural
W I L L I A M K O N S TA N T I N M E S H C H E RY
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assimo Vignelli (born January 1931 in Milan, Italy) is a designer who has done work in a number of areas ranging from package design to houseware design to furniture design to public signage to showroom design through Vignelli Associates, which he co-founded with his wife, Lella. He has said, “If you can design one thing, you can design everything,” and this is reflected in his broad range of work.
As a teenager, he became enthralled with design and befriended many of the great architects of his day. (He sometimes says his youth was spent as an “architecture groupie.”) He went on to study architecture at the Politecnico di Milano and later at the Università di Architettura, Venice. rom 1957 to 1960, Vignelli visited America on a fellowship, and returned to New York in 1966 to start the New York branch of a new company, Unimark International, which quickly became, in scope and personnel, one of the largest design firms in the world. The firm went on to design many of the world’s most recognizable corporate identities, including that of American Airlines (which forced him to incorporate the eagle, Massimo is always quick to point out).
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Vignelli works firmly within the Modernist tradition, and focuses on simplicity through the use of basic geometric forms in all of his work.
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Awards
1987 - Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York 1988 - Interior Design Hall of Fame
1964 Gran Premio Triennale di Milano
1973 - Industrial Arts Medal of the American Institute of Architects (AIA)
1964 - 1998 Compasso d’Oro, from (ADI), Italian Association for Industrial Design
1983 AIGA Gold Medal 1982 - New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame
1982 Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design, New York
1985 - first Presidential Design Award
1991 - National Arts Club Gold Medal for Design
1988 - Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island
Vignelli 5 1992 - Interior Product Designers Fellowship of Excellence 2000 - Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California
1993 - New York State Governor’s Award for Excellence
2005 - Architecture Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY 1995 - Brooklyn Museum Design Award for Lifetime Achievement
1994 - Honorary Doctorate in Architecture from the University of Venice, Italy 1996 - Honorary Royal Designer for Industry Award, Royal Society of Arts, London
1994 - Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Corcoran School of Art, Washington D.C.
2002 - Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York
2003 - National Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Museum of Design at Cooper-Hewitt, New York
2004 - Visionary Award from the Museum of Art and Design, New York
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The principles and concepts behind “all good design”
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assimo Vignelli has worked in a wide variety of areas, including interior design, environmental design, package design, graphic design, furniture design, and product design. His clients at Vignelli Associates have included high-profile companies such as IBM, Knoll, Bloomingdale’s and American Airlines. Vignelli participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions project in 2007, as well as
publishing the book, Vignelli: From A to Z, which contains a series of essays describing the principles and concepts behind “all good design”. It is alphabetically organized by topic, roughly approximating a similar course he has taught at Harvard’s School of Design and Architecture. ignelli’s “Unigrid System” has been used since 1977 in creation of park brochures in all national parks locations. Vignelli was involved with filmmaker Gary Hustwit in the documentary Helvetica, about the typeface of the same name. Recently, Vignelli also updated his 1972 New York City subway map.
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n January 2009, Vignelli released The Vignelli Canon as a free e-book; an expanded version was printed in September 2010, but the original remains available for download on the Vignelli Associates website.
In the introduction Vignelli writes, “I thought that it might be useful to pass some of my professional knowledge around, with the hope of improving young designers’ design skills.
Creativity needs the support of knowledge to be able to perform at its best.”
Massimo Vignelli
“If you can design one thing, you can design everything.�
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