Quote

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.

Massimo Vignelli

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Massimo Vignelli
Age: 83 †
Born: 1931
Born: January 10
Died: 2014
Died: May 27
Architect
Designer
Furniture Designer
Graphic Designer
Interior Designer
University Teacher
Milano
Italia
Looks
Expressive
Writing
Bark
Think
Dog
Thinking
Type
Like
Word
People
Write
Doesn
Typeface
Look
Typefaces

More quotes by Massimo Vignelli

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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.
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Graphic Design is the communication of information in an appropriate visual manner.
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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.
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A grid is like underwear, you wear it but it's not to be exposed.
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If you do it right, it will last forever.
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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.
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One life is too short for doing everything.
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I see graphic design as the organization of information that is semantically correct, syntactically consistent and pragmatically understandable.
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Good design is ubiquitous and forever.
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There are people that thinks that type should be expressive. They have a different point of view from mine.
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You do design because you feel it inside you have a moral issue to spread quality in our environment.
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Most of the manufacturers they tend to design things to sell they are more interested in the money side than anything else.
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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.
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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.
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Intellectual elegance [is] a mind that is continually refining itself with education and knowledge. Intellectual elegance is the opposite of intellectual vulgarity.
Massimo Vignelli
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If you can design one thing, you can design everything.
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Scale is extremely important. Scale is not dimensions. Dimensions are physical and scales are mental.
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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.
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In design, be logical, search for truth, be clear.
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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.
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