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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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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
Mind
Vulgarity
Elegance
Continually
Opposite
Opposites
Intellectual
Education
Knowledge
Refining

More quotes by Massimo Vignelli

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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.
Massimo Vignelli
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Graphic Design is the communication of information in an appropriate visual manner.
Massimo Vignelli
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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.
Massimo Vignelli
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A grid is like underwear, you wear it but it's not to be exposed.
Massimo Vignelli
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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.
Massimo Vignelli
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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.
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.
Massimo Vignelli
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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.
Massimo Vignelli
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Design without discipline is anarchy, an exercise of irresponsibilit y.
Massimo Vignelli
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In design, be logical, search for truth, be clear.
Massimo Vignelli
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You do design because you feel it inside you have a moral issue to spread quality in our environment.
Massimo Vignelli
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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.
Massimo Vignelli
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One life is too short for doing everything.
Massimo Vignelli
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I like it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all, timeless.
Massimo Vignelli
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It is better to starve than get a bad client.
Massimo Vignelli
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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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Good design is ubiquitous and forever.
Massimo Vignelli
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There are people that thinks that type should be expressive. They have a different point of view from mine.
Massimo Vignelli
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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.
Massimo Vignelli
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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.
Massimo Vignelli