MASSIMOVIGNELLI

“There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.”

MASSIMOVIGNELLI

IntroductionMassimo Vignelli is an Italian designer. He is known for timeless and minamal styled designs. It is not only about creating the pretty objects for Vignelli. More of a crusade against vulgarity in Design. Vulgarity is a strong term to use. I agree with Vignelli. Designers have a responsibility to make things that are functional and long lasting. Things are intelligent and have strength.

There are three aspects of design that are important to Vignelli: Semantic, Syntactic and Pragmatic. The following pages speaks a little about what each subject means to Vignelli.

New York City Subway Diagram2008

Semantics for Vignelli is the search for the meaning of whatever he has to design. Depending on the subject the search has be know to take many directions. From common research on the company, the product, the market position of the subject, or indeed, about the real meaning of the subject and its semantic roots.

For satisfactory results accurate and essential meaning are extremely important. Semantics are what will provide the real bases for correct inception of projects, regardless of what they may be. It is a crucial component of the natural process of Design. Design without semantics is shallow and meaningless but, unfortunately it is also ubiquitous, and that is why it is so import an that young designers train themselves to start the design process in the correct way- the only way that can enrich their Design.

Semantics, in Design, means to understand the subject in all its aspects; to relate the subject to the sender and the receiver in such a way that it makes sense to both. It means to design something that has a meaning, that is not arbitrary, that has a reason for being, something in which every detail at a precise target.

Semantic

Dishware 1964 Nuts and Bolts Packaging 1968IBM Packaging 1984American Airlines Idenity 1967Knoll Packaging 1966-1978Cosmit Idenity 1994

Mies, Vignelli’s mentor said: “God is in the details.” That is the essence of syntax:the discipline that con trills the proper use of grammar in the construction of phrases and the articulation of a language, Design. The Syntax of Design is provided by many components in the nature of the project. In graphic design, for instance, they are the overall structure, the grid, the typefaces, the text and headline, the illustrations, etc. The consistency of a design is provided by the appropriate relationship of the various syntactical elements of the project: how type relates to the grids and images from page to page throughout the whole project. Or, how type sizes relate to each other. Or, How pictures relate to each other how the parts real to the whole. There are way to achieve all this that are incorrect, and should be avoided.

Syntactic consistency is of paramount importance in graphic design as it is in all human endeavors. Grads are on of the several tools helping designers to achieve syntactical consistency in graphic design.

Syntactics

Museum of Fine Arts Houston1999

Few Basic Typefaces Exhibtion & Poster1991

Whatever we do, if not understood, fails to communicate and is wasted effort. Any artifact should stand by itself in all its clarity. Otherwise, something really important has been missed. Clarity of intent will translate in to clarity of result and that is of paramount importance in Design. Confused, complicated design reveal an equally confused and complicated mind. We love complexities but hate complications.

Having said this, Vignelli adds that we like design to be forceful. We do not like limpy design. We like Design to be intellectually elegant- that means elegance of the mind, not one of manners, eleglance that is the opposite of vulgarity. We like Design to be as timeless as possible. we despise the culture of obsolescence. We feel the moral imperative of designing things that will last for a long time.

It is with this set of values that we approach Design everyday, regardless of what it may be: two or three dimensional, large, small, rich or poor. Design is one.

Pragmatics

Vignelli: from A to Z2007

Feudi di San Gregorio Wines2011

colophon

introduction nick petranic

information adopeted fromthe vignelli cannon written by massimo vignelli

inside papermohawk

typefacesbodonihelvetica neue

imagesthe vignelli cannon andwww.vignelli.com

designnick petranic

“I like design to be semantically correct, syntactically consistent, and pragmatically understandable.

I like it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all timeless.”

massimo vignelli