Revealing the greats who've transformed the design industry.
A look into the life of the influential designer who gave the world direction.
33: Profiles of Influential Graphic Designers • Massimo Vignelli
strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those two things.” This quote b y designer Linton Leader reflects the ethos and design personality of one of history’s greatest graphic designers, Massimo Vignelli. Active in everything from packages and graphics, to furniture design to the famous creation of New York City’s subway map, this incredible man, side-by-side with his equally talented and inspirational wife, used his clean, simple view of design to bring the world to life and revolutionize the design industry.
History of a Legend Vignelli grew up living in Italy, starting a life-long career of design in Milan with his new wife Lella in 1960 by opening a joint design firm. In an article by Ellen Lupton, Remembering Massimo Vignelli, the Innovator Who Streamlined Design and Change the Industry Forever for The Smithsonian, Lupton states that though husband and wife were multi-talented in various aspects of design, “Lella continued to focus on three-dimensional design, while Massimo focused on graphics” and that “…together, they could move across disciplines with astonishing grace.” After over five years of working in his small company in Italy, Vignelli moved to New York City, where he helped to found New York’s Unimark International, a design company “which quickly became, in scope and personnel, one of the largest design firms in the world” (Wikipedia. org Within this company, Vignelli worked mostly in corporate identity, from printed material to interior decor. However, after a few years working with Unimark, Vignelli resigned, as he believed the company to have lost and diluted its design vision, and he moved on to found
33: Profiles of Influential Graphic Designers • Massimo Vignelli
Vignelli Associates with his beloved wife, a firm which has shaped and continues to shape design and designers substantially through the decades since its founding.
Work & Style Flowing throughout Vignelli’s personal work is evidence of his trademark style of staunch Modernism. “Throughout his career, Massimo raged against typographic excess” (Lupton). He was a keen believer in the idea that type within a design needed only to be presented cleanly and in an organized and helpful way, and by no means as a form of expression. “I can write the word ‘dog’”, he said, “with any typeface and it doesn’t have to look like a dog.” It is this desire for order and structure that birthed one of Vignelli’s most lauded design accomplishments, the creation of the signage for New York City’s subway system, and the iconic grid map for that system. This innovation in design marked the start of a new period in New York City’s history, as Vignelli brought New York into the era of Helvetic and clean lines. “His ability to stay modern in a postmodern world sealed his reputation as one of the great designers of our time” (Lupton).
Inspiring Others Vignelli’s appreciation for simple beauty and a clean, user-friendly world extended beyond just his work and impacted others through his character and actions. Michael Beirut, a now well-established designer in his own right, describes working under Vignelli during his formative design years in Vignelli’s firm. In Beirut’s feature Massimo Vignelli, 1931-2014 for The Design Observer Group, Beirut states that Vignelli “filled the room with his oversized personality,” one that was in all ways “elegant, loquacious, gesticulating, [and] brimming with enthusiasm.” Vignelli appeared to Beirut to possess Zeus-like
“Vignelli brought New York into the era of Helvetica and clean lines.”
characteristics, creating the picture of a man who was “impossibly wise, impossibly old” (Beirut). Still, despite this reverence with which Vignelli was treated by those he held superiority over, he managed to maintain an incredible humility and generosity, treating each individual with a respect that extended far beyond their station or position. The joy he held for the craft which was his life was infectious, with Beirut remarking that “he was able to bring enthusiasm, joy and intensity to the smallest design challenge” in a way that inspired and touched the lives of everyone he reached.
A Guiding Light As a person, Vignelli influenced many, and as a designer his work continues to live on, promoting his pure, elegant, Modernist views through a vast body of work to an audience of millions; a continued in-
fluence in the world of design long after his passing in May. Just as his famed subway map guides its travelers, so Vignelli serves as a guiding light to all designers, calling them to a higher standard of design and of life; the little bird on our shoulder, the angel at our ear, calling our design “to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant and above all timeless” (Massimo Vignelli). ~*~ References: Beirut, Michael. “Massimo Vignelli, 1931-2014.” The Design Observer Group 27 May 2014. Web. 30 Nov. 2014. <http://designobserver.com/feature/massimo-vignelli-1931-2014/38336>. Lupton, Ellen. “Remembering Massimo Vignelli, the Innovator Who Streamlined Design and Changed the Industry Forever.” Smithsonian 29 May 2014. Web. Wikipedia. “Massimo Vignelli.” Wikipedia.org. Web. 30 Nov. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Vignelli>.
33: Profiles of Influential Graphic Designers • Massimo Vignelli