Week #4 Artist Massimo Vignelli

Massimo Vignelli – was born in Milan Italy he was a designer who worked across a broad spectrum including packaging design, furniture design, and public signage. Vignelli was the Co-founder of Vignelli Associates, with his wife Lella, who played a key role in his career. Vignelli’s, works were a reflection of modernism tradition due to his simplistic style and his usage of basic geometric shapes.

            Vignelli studied architecture in Italy in 1957 Vignelli visited New York for a three-year Fellowship. Vignelli would return six years later and started a New York branch of a new company, Unimark International which became the largest design firm in the world. The firm designed some of the most identifiable corporate logos including American Airlines. Due to that recognition, Vignelli had to ‘incorporate the eagle”, it is noted that he enjoyed letting that fact be known. Vignelli also designed the signage for the New, York subway system for that era, and in the ’70s and 1980’s he designed the map for the subway. Vignelli did not design the map for the Washington, DC subway system, however, he did design the way-finding signage system for the system and it is notable that Washington subway is called Metro on the behest of Vignelli. The name Metro was common for other complex systems. The original name was Mishmash!

            Vignelli worked with the filmmaker Gary Hustwit on the film Helvetica’s typeface of the same name. In 1972 Vignelli updated the New York Subway map for an online version, that was implemented in 2011 that version did not include streets and parks. The redesign was referred to as a diagram to reflect a more abstract design minus the streets, and parks. He also wrote a book for New York’s Stock Exchange of Vision of Project” in 2007 titled  Vignelli from A to Z, the book was a series of essays that showcased the principles of “all good design”.

       Vignelli Associates clients included IBM, Knoll, and Bloomingdales. Michael Bierut, a former employee, of Vignelli’s, wrote that "it seemed to me that the whole city of New York was