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

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In design, be logical, search for truth, be clear.
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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.
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I like it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all, timeless.
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If you do it right, it will last forever.
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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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It is better to starve than get a bad client.
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One life is too short for doing everything.
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A designer without a sense of history is worth nothing
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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.
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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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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.
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If you can design one thing, you can design 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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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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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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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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Design without discipline is anarchy, an exercise of irresponsibilit y.
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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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Good design is ubiquitous and forever.
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Scale is extremely important. Scale is not dimensions. Dimensions are physical and scales are mental.
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