Quote

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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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
Long
Eaten
Like
Governed
Lion
Grid
Govern
Grids
Stays
Trainer
Lions
Trainers
Gets
Cage
Leave
Cages

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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 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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I like it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all, timeless.
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In design, be logical, search for truth, be clear.
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A designer without a sense of history is worth nothing
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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.
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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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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 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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Design without discipline is anarchy, an exercise of irresponsibilit y.
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It is better to starve than get a bad client.
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Graphic Design is the communication of information in an appropriate visual manner.
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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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You do design because you feel it inside you have a moral issue to spread quality in our environment.
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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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A grid is like underwear, you wear it but it's not to be exposed.
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One life is too short for doing everything.
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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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Scale is extremely important. Scale is not dimensions. Dimensions are physical and scales are mental.
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