We’re in the revolutionary 1450s of digital publishing, just after the invention of movable type. Books will disappear. Design for digital.
Steve Jobs understood the four wheels to success in our industry: design, production, financial and marketing. His vision was total.
Worth repeating: Good design is visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all, timeless.
The Vignelli home library: 50 years of print design vignellidesi…/12678429852[+]
@dougbartow Agreed.
@saurospagnol @TrevorBaum @fenmark @mullerbrockmann @juniorspecial The client’s needs first, yes. But that’s not a license for any typeface.
Photo: The Saratoga, designed in 1964 for Poltronova. vignellidesi…/12509707304[+]
@KombinatType Timelessness is how we measure greatness. Only a few typefaces have stood the test of time, hence we only stick to a handful.
@Ampersanderson Apprenticeship should be supported by education in design history, theory and criticism.
@KLTF Except, there are only a handful of great typefaces.
@shaunpimley Focus on other design elements for expressiveness. Keep typography objective. Stick to timeless ones like Helvetica or Bodoni.
The worse the designer is, the more typefaces he uses.
You cannot have better design unless you have better design schools. It is as simple as that.
We like music and we can’t stand noise. What we see in poor design is noise. Noise is a sound that has no intellectual depth.
New York’s all new SD26, designed by us: sd26ny.com[+] (Flash required)
“If in the process of solving a problem you create a problem, you didn’t design”: vignellidesi…/11607992424[+]
We believe in the social responsibility of the designer and that design is an integral part of the production process, not an embellishment.
The discipline of design is one. We believe that different experiences enrich the mind and that specialization creates entropy.
On Steve Jobs: vignellidesi…t/9741057194[+]
Visual strength is an expression of intellectual elegance and should not be confused with just visual impact (often obtrusive and vulgar).
Creativity needs the support of knowledge to be able to perform at its best.
A designer should be able to design everything from a spoon to a city, because the basic discipline of design is one — only specifics change
We hope there is no ‘Vignelli look’. It would be a negation of all that we stand for. We are not interested in style, per se.
Our process of working is by subtraction. It is about refinement, instead of trying to do a completely new thing.
Dimension is measurable. Scale is mental – a relationship to the object and the space surrounding it. Mastering scale is a lifelong search.
@madebythat Let me clarify: twitter.com/…363067629568[+]
Discipline doesn’t mean going straight. Discipline is just rigorousness to yourself and to the boundaries you set up for a particular work.
Design without discipline is anarchy.
You have to learn to have a critical mind. There is no such thing as a creative mind but not a critical mind.
I like cubes, squares and circles. They are perfect, eternal, absolute shapes. We always start with absolute quantities in product design.
Choose things that are timeless: http://vignellidesign.tumblr.com/post/5506381479/timelessness
We like design that has strength. This is what the Bauhaus was all about: simple things that work, that last, that are good, that are real.
@Shorty2Short411 Great. Can you share any interview notes or a recording with us?
Training the eye is crucial. Go to Venice or Florence. Walk down the streets there and you’ll learn more about design than at design school.
Good design lasts.
Discipline without interpretation is boring, but interpretation without discipline doesn’t stand up.
Trendiness is trash because next year, when it is over, it becomes trash right away.
Everything is the product of the mind. Everything that is ugly is the product of ugly minds. Beauty is a by-product of intellectual elegance
Theory is what generates a product. Criticism is what controls it. History is what gives you the possibility of evaluating your work.
For education in design, three things are important: history, theory and criticism.
Design, like music, works within a framework. Interpret established rules and solve the problem. It’s about how well you play the instrument
A designer’s moral imperative should be to reduce the ugliness around us, and replace them with decent, unselfish designs.
The search for objectivity is more important to us than subjectivity. Our work is more rigorous and primary as a result.
An object has style if the intelligence that generated it had style. I doubt that I have ever met or seen an ignorant person with style.
When you have discipline, you don’t have to look for beauty – it comes out from the clarity of information itself. That is why we use grids.
Art does not have any limits, but design should.
Our job is to spread the notion of quality as much as possible. That is our mission.
If modernism is treated as style, it is modern no more. Modern has no style. Modern is a discipline. Modern is an attitude; a way of being.
Our approach to graphic design has always been the organization of information. We don’t think of design as art. Design is just design.
