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Massimo Vignelli

Massimo Vignelli Quotes

Designer

Massimo Vignelli is an Italian-American designer renowned for his contributions to graphic design, interior design, and environmental graphic design. His works include the iconic New York City subway logo, the American Airlines logo, and visual identity systems for numerous brands and institutions.

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Famous Massimo Vignelli Quotes

“You can say, "I love you," in Helvetica. And you can say it with Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be really fancy. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it's really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work.”

Graphic Design Typography Helvetica Helvetica Movie

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Any color works if you push it to the extreme.”

Ifs Color Extremes

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“It is better to starve than get a bad client.”

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“I started very early. I started to be interested in design when I was 14 years old, basically, and before I was just like anybody else, any other kid. I was playing with everything. I loved to do stage sets by cutting a piece of board and making a cut in three sides, flipping it down, making the stage.”

Years Kids Three Sides Pieces Cutting Stage Design Boards Three Sides

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“I started to begin to be interested in architecture and design when I was 14 years old, which was pretty early in life. And then I would start to look at architectural magazines and I eventually went to the school of architecture too, but one of the things I learned very early is that an architect should be able to design anything from a spoon to the city.”

Should Years Looks Able School Cities Design Architecture Magazines Architect Spoons Architecture And Design

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“I grew up with a pencil. A pencil was my computer at the time and so drawing, drawing, drawing and the tools of drawing where the usual ones and eventually then you graduated from the tools when the work increases and you start to draw by freehand as precise as possible and as accurate as possible, and I was pretty good at that.”

Grew Computer Grew Up Draws Tools Increase Drawing Usual Accurate Precise Pencils

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Scale is extremely important. Scale is not dimensions. Dimensions are physical and scales are mental.”

Important Scales Dimensions

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“You cannot play the piano by telling a pianist what to do, go a little more to the left or to the right. And the same is for the computer, really. You have to play yourself to get the most out of it.”

Littles Play Left Computer Piano Pianist

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“The computer is really like a pencil, you know. It used to be. The pencil can do anything you want to, but you have to do it, and the same is with the computer.”

Knows Want Used Can Do Computer Used To Be Pencils

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“The pencil you leave it there, and it's dead. It doesn't do anything and it doesn't move by itself. It doesn't offer anything; it's totally submissive to you.”

Moving Offers Pencils Submissive

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“The computer needs...even by accident, offers incredible beautiful things that are very seductive. And if you forget about, or if you don't have an idea to begin with, it is very easy to be seduced and that is not a good use of the computer.”

Ifs Needs Ideas Use Beautiful Easy Forget Offers Computer Incredibles Accidents Beautiful Things Seductive

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Most of the manufacturers they tend to design things to sell they are more interested in the money side than anything else.”

Sides Design Sells

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Greed is really the religion of vulgarity.”

Greed Vulgarity

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“I'm not a designer, I'm a sifter. I can sift everything, all the time. My sift level lines keep shaking all the time for everything that is around.”

I Can Lines Levels Designer Shaking

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Scale is a mental - you can say that a lounger has scale, a building has scale, or an object has scale, or a page, or whatever if it's just right. A scale is a relationship to the object and the space surrounding it. And that dialogue could be music, or it could be just noise. And that is why it is so important, the sense of scale.”

Ifs Important Space Objects Building Pages Scales Dialogue Noise

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“The scale relates to everything. The thickness of a pipe, the thickness of a leg of the furniture. Even color could have a scale.”

Color Legs Scales Relate Furniture Pipe Thickness

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“If you paint a building shocking pink, that has no scale, it is just a huge mistake, but it's not in the scale of the city to have things like that. You know. So, not only because it's not appropriate, not only because it's offensive to the environment, I mean but among them also because that quantity of that color in the urban scale, is out of scale.”

Ifs Knows Mean Cities Mistake Environment Building Color Huge Paint Scales Appropriate Quantity Offensive Urban Shocking

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Don't be governed by the grid, govern the grid. A grid is like a lion cage - if the trainer stays too long it gets eaten up. You have to know when to leave the cage - you have to know when to leave the grid.”

Ifs Knows Long Lions Cages Trainers Grids

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“If you do the best thing everyday of your life, but nothing shakes you nor shakes the table for you and others, it is stale and its not worth it.”

Ifs Tables Everyday Best Things Shakes Worth It Do The Best Stale Not Worth It

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Design is not art. Design is utilitarian, art is not.”

Art Design Art Is Utilitarian Art Design

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“The only way to stay in fashion is never be in. If you are never in fashion, you are never out of fashion.”

Ifs Way Fashion

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“In design, be logical, search for truth, be clear.”

Clear Design Truth Is Logical Search For Truth

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Middle management is a disease.”

Middle Disease Management Middle Management

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“One life is too short for doing everything.”

Life Is Too Short Life Is Too Short

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Graphic Design is the communication of information in an appropriate visual manner.”

Information Design Communication Visuals Appropriate Graphic Graphic Design

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Men's clothing hasn't changed in 200 years, maybe a lapel gets a little wider or a tie gets narrower from time to time. But it's usually always the same. There is stupidity in men's fashion. But women know who they are. They can change. Clothing is seductive for women. They get different personas by buying new clothes. But men don't.”

Knows Men Years Littles Different Fashion Changed Clothes Stupidity Ties Buying Clothings Persona Seductive New Clothes

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“If you can design one thing, you can design everything.”

Ifs One Thing Design Designer Graphic Design Graphic Designer Inspirational Design Inspirational Graphic Design Great Design Design Inspiration Creativity And Design Funny Graphic Design Creative Design

Book:Design is One

Source: Design is One

“The life of a designer is a life of fight: fight against the ugliness.”

“I don't think that type should be expressive at all. I can write the word 'dog' with any typeface and it doesn't have to look like a dog. But there are people that [think that] when they write 'dog' it should bark.”

People Thinking Should Writing Looks I Can Dog Type Bark Expressive Typefaces

Author:Massimo Vignelli

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

Design Discipline Designer Graphic Design Graphic Artist Graphic Designer Inspirational Design Inspirational Graphic Design Design Inspiration Best Design Creativity And Design Graphic Design Inspiration Creative Design Beautiful Design

Book:Vignelli

Source: Vignelli

“The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design.”

“A grid is like underwear, you wear it but it's not to be exposed.”

Consciousness Exposed Underwear Grids

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“The repercussion of ugliness is endless.”

Endless Ugliness Repercussions

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Intellectual elegance [is] a mind that is continually refining itself with education and knowledge. Intellectual elegance is the opposite of intellectual vulgarity.”

Mind Intellectual Opposites Elegance Vulgarity Refining Education And Knowledge

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Styles come and go. Good design is a language, not a style.”

Language Style Design Comes And Goes Good Design

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“You can reach timelessness if you look for the essence of things and not the appearance. The appearance is transitory — the appearance is fashion, the appearance is trendiness — but the essence is timeless.”

Ifs Looks Fashion Essence Appearance Timeless Transitory Timelessness

Author:Massimo Vignelli

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

Powerful All Time Timeless Elegant

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Designers take care of 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.”

Has Beens Care Tables Take Care Designer Chairs Pens Lamps

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Good design is a matter of discipline. It starts by looking at the problem and collecting all the available information about it. If you understand the problem, you have the solution. It’s really more about logic than imagination.”

Ifs Matter Problem Imagination Information Design Discipline Solutions Logic Available Collecting Good Design

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“The first thing you need to make clear to a client is that you aren't there to answer his wants but to answer his needs.”

Want Needs Firsts Answers Clear Clients

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“In the new computer age, the proliferation of typefaces and type manipulations represents a new level of visual pollution threatening our culture. Out of thousands of typefaces, all we need are a few basic ones, and trash the rest.”

Needs Age Culture Levels Type Computer Visuals Manipulation Pollution Threatening Trash Proliferation Typefaces

Book:Design is One

Source: Design is One

“There are people that thinks that type should be expressive. They have a different point of view from mine.”

People Thinking Should Different Views Mines Type Point Of View Expressive Different Points Of View Helvetica

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“I see graphic design as the organization of information that is semantically correct, syntactically consistent and pragmatically understandable.”

Information Design Organization Consistent Graphic Graphic Design

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“...if all people doing desktop publishing were doctors we would all be dead!”

People Ifs Design Doctors Publishing Typography Desktop Desktop Publishing

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“If you do it right, it will last forever.”

Ifs Lasts Forever Design Graphic Graphic Design

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“So what is design all about? It [exists to] decrease the amount of vulgarity in the world ... to make the world a better place to be. 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.”

World Giving Levels Quality Talking Style Design Amount Surround Better Place Tangible Not Talking Decrease Vulgarity Intangible

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“It’s not important to develop your own style but your own approach.”

Important Style Approach

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“A designer without a sense of history is worth nothing”

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Design without discipline is anarchy, an exercise of irresponsibilit y.”

Design Discipline Exercise Anarchy

Author:Massimo Vignelli

“Good design is ubiquitous and forever.”

Forever Design Good Design

Author:Massimo Vignelli

About the Author

Known for: Designer
Quotes: 51

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People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Design is OneRelated source material

VignelliRelated source material

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