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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

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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
Ones
Represents
Rest
Visuals
Manipulations
Levels
Visual
Typefaces
Age
Thousands
Proliferation
Culture
Basic
Manipulation
Need
Computer
Trash
Needs
Level
Pollution
Type
Threatening

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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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Graphic Design is the communication of information in an appropriate visual manner.
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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.
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The only way to stay in fashion is never be in. If you are never in fashion, you are never out of fashion.
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Scale is extremely important. Scale is not dimensions. Dimensions are physical and scales are mental.
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Good design is ubiquitous and forever.
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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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In design, be logical, search for truth, be clear.
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If you can design one thing, you can design everything.
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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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You do design because you feel it inside you have a moral issue to spread quality in our environment.
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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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I see graphic design as the organization of information that is semantically correct, syntactically consistent and pragmatically understandable.
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A designer without a sense of history is worth nothing
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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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There are people that thinks that type should be expressive. They have a different point of view from mine.
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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.
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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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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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