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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
Doesn
Typeface
Look
Typefaces
Looks
Expressive
Writing
Bark
Think
Dog
Thinking
Type
Like
Word
People
Write

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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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Scale is extremely important. Scale is not dimensions. Dimensions are physical and scales are mental.
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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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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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One life is too short for doing everything.
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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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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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