I learned how to design at design school. But I learned how to be a designer from
Massimo Vignelli.
In June 1980, I graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design, and moved to New York City to take a job at
Vignelli Associates. I can barely picture the person I was 34 years ago. I was from a middle class suburb on the wrong side of Cleveland, Parma, Ohio, the newly-hired, lowest-ranked employee at Vignelli Associates.
The tasks I would be doing at my new job would be barely comprehensible to young graphic designers today, menial operations involving rubber cement thinner, X-acto knives and Photostat developer. I was a schlub, a peon, a punk. I knew nothing. Massimo and his wife Lella were to discover very quickly that Parma, Ohio, and Parma, Italy, had very little in common.
Today there is an
entire building in Rochester, New York, dedicated to preserving the Vignelli legacy. But in those days, it seemed to me that the whole city of New York was a permanent Vignelli exhibition. To get to the office, I rode in a subway with
Vignelli-designed signage, shared the sidewalk with people holding Vignelli-designed
Bloomingdale’s shopping bags, walked by St. Peter’s Church with its
Vignelli-designed pipe organ visible through the window. At Vignelli Associates, at 23 years old, I felt I was at the center of the universe.
I was already at my desk on my first day of work when Massimo arrived. As always, he filled the room with his oversized personality. Elegant, loquacious, gesticulating, brimming with enthusiasm. Massimo was like Zeus, impossibly wise, impossibly old. (He was, in fact, 49.) My education was about to begin.
At Vignelli Associates, I was immersed in a world of unbelievable glamour. If you were a designer – even the lowest of the low, like me – Massimo treated you with a huge amount of respect. Everyone passed through that office. I met the best designers in the world there: Paul Rand, Leo Leonni, Joseph Muller-Brockman, Alan Fletcher. And not just designers. I remember one time Massimo was working on a book project with an editor from Doubleday, and he decided to give her a tour of the office. He brought her to my desk and introduced me. It was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. “Mrs. Onassis, this is one of our young designers, Michael Bierut,” said Massimo. “It’s an honor to meet you,” said the former First Lady. I think I just said, “Guh, guh, guh.”
From Massimo, I Iearned that designing a book wasn’t about coming up with a clever place for the page numbers. He taught me about typography, about scale, about pacing, about refinement. I learned to think of graphic design as a way to create an experience, an experience that was not limited to two dimensions or to a momentary impression. It was about creating something lasting, even timeless.
Most importantly, I learned about the world. From my hometown I knew only the
Parmatown Mall, anchored with Higbee's and May Company. Massimo taught me about the
Galleria in Milano. I learned about architecture, fashion, food, literature, life. It was with Massimo that I had my first taste of steak tartare and my first taste of
stilton with port. Imagine, raw meat for dinner and cheese for dessert! For Massimo, design was life and life was design.
Finally, from Massimo I learned never to give up. He was able to bring enthusiasm, joy and intensity to the smallest design challenge. Even after fifty years, he could delight in designing something like a business card as if he had never done one before.
It was Massimo who taught me one of the simplest things in the world: that if you do good work, you get more good work to do, and conversely bad work brings more bad work. It sounds simple, but it’s remarkable, over the course of a lifetime of pragmatism and compromise, how easy it is to forget: the only way to do good work is simply to do good work. Massimo did good work.
I intended to stay at Vignelli Associates for 18 months and then find something new. Instead, I stayed there for ten years. I loved my job. But I had finally reached a point where I realized I had to move on. Quitting was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I had a speech all prepared, and the night before I was driving on Interstate 87 and rehearsing the speech in my head. Suddenly I saw the lights of a police car right behind me. I was pulled over. “Do you know how fast you were going?” “Um, 65?” “Try 85. You pulled up right behind our squad car” – it was a marked squad car, by the way – “passed us on the right, and then cut us off.” They made me get out of the car, checked the trunk, and took me to the State Trooper barracks for 90 minutes while they ascertained that I wasn’t a drug addict or a terrorist. Massimo had that kind of effect on people.
The next day, when I told him I had decided to leave, Massimo was the same as he always was: warm, emotional, generous. He had had many other designers work for him before me and would have many others afterwards. But for me, there would only be one: my teacher, my mentor, my boss, my hero, my friend, Massimo Vignelli.
Massimo died this morning at the age of 83. Up until the end — I saw him four days before he died — he was still curious, still generous, still excited about design. He leaves his wife, Lella; his children, Luca and Valentina; and generations of designers who, like me, are still learning from his example.
Comments [47]
- Graham
05.27.14
10:47
05.27.14
11:57
05.27.14
12:16
05.27.14
12:18
05.27.14
12:28
Thanks Michael, lovely what you wrote.
05.27.14
12:49
05.27.14
01:17
05.27.14
01:23
Finding my way to the room where he would speak, it was practically empty - seats for over 100, but maybe 25 people there. Nevertheless, Massimo arrived with Lella and proceeded to talk for over an hour about his career, with a ton of slides. When he was done, he graciously stayed to answer questions, including mine.
I consider myself fortunate to have met both Tony Palladino and Massimo along the way in my career. I'm quite saddened by this week and hope the old wives tale of things happening in threes skips a beat.
05.27.14
01:26
05.27.14
01:29
05.27.14
01:41
05.27.14
01:46
05.27.14
01:46
I have had this quote etched into my mind since I first heard of Mr Massimo Vignelli. Having never met the great man, I have admired him from afar, be it his work, writings, occasional film appearance and have always admired his honest approach to life and design.
A really touching article Michael, thank you for sharing.
Such a sad day for graphic design. Rest in peace Mr Vignelli.
05.27.14
01:48
Much has been written about a mysterious affinity between Russian and Italian souls. Our friendship was a testament to this enduring connection. For me, Massimo's interest in Russian people and culture was a proof of his child-like curiosity and open mind. I will miss him very much.
05.27.14
02:06
05.27.14
02:07
05.27.14
02:12
05.27.14
02:28
05.27.14
03:20
05.27.14
03:21
I never got to meet the man in person, but his work made me feel like I had. Powerful, awesome stuff.
05.27.14
03:21
05.27.14
03:22
I never got to meet Jackie O, but was lucky enough to have Massimo as a friend and mentor. He will be missed but his lessons live on.
05.27.14
03:40
05.27.14
03:44
05.27.14
04:17
05.27.14
05:07
A tough man
A quiet man
An opinionated man
A versatile man
A unique man
A demanding man
A rigid man
A totally flexible man
Known by most as the designer of an ultimately silly but beautiful subway map, he should be known for so much more. For about 50 years he and his partner Lella quietly transformed much of graphic design in this country to a European perspective and helped to internationalize what had once been little more than an unskilled trade. Whether you agreed with his ideas or did not: there was never a question that his ideas formed the foundation of his work. I worked with him only once; on a project in my opinion he was badly chosen for (I never felt Massimo understood or had much of a feeling for the pre Target low end mass market). Consequently the work was difficult, at times painful and the eventual result satisfying to none. He wasn't wrong and neither was the client. But they were wrong for each other. For me as a young designer on the client side it was frustrating as well as fascinating and incredibly instructive. At the dawn of the digital age I once saw him debate (it was more a gentle discussion) the virtues of the computer's potential impact on design with Milton Glaser. Massimo predictably for, Milton, not so convinced. Thirty years later, they were both right. Massimo was a giant among us and those of us who knew him if only briefly were illuminated by the glow of his soul. Blessings.
05.27.14
06:01
Your remembrance made me smile. Massimo's work stands as a legacy. But his humanity is what I will remember. Here's a story I posted on my FB wall earlier today:
I've been reflecting on this 2007 Icograda Design Week in India - especially the evening of student workshop critiques. We arrived back from a very late dinner. Conventional wisdom would have been to delay the crits to the next morning. From Massimo, I learned a valuable lesson: 'They've waited for us, we owe them our time.' At 2am, he was as engaged as if it was 2pm. Rest well, Massimo.
I'm eternally grateful for that life lesson. And more so for having shared rich conversation and a few laughs while we were together in India.
It is the person behind the work that I will miss.
All the best,
Brenda
05.27.14
07:25
Lesson One: First find an elegant idea, then execute it well
Massimo looked for the kind of design idea that thrills because it is so logically, practically and/or theatrically sound, provoking the observer’s delight as well as appreciation for a simple, surprising and grounded idea. Some graphic design example:
- In designing a shopping bag for Knoll, he decided to leave the large sides blank and instead put the logotype in its gussets, creating a moment of excitement when one opens what appears to be a blank bag to reveal large colorful logos. When in use, the bag became a billboard for those approaching from in front or following from behind: the main angles of view on a sidewalk or Design Center hallway.
- He designed a corporate jet with an extremely minimal and disciplined appearance when passengers approached to board, but with a huge red sunburst pattern on the plane’s bottom, visible to those on the ground when the plane was in flight.
- He designed an elegant formal invitation for a show of their work, then scrunched it into ball and sent it in a fattened envelope, so the invitee gets to unfold what initially appears to be a discarded item to be revealed as a refined and by then elegantly textured invitation.
The two-step nature of his design process — the conceptual ah-ha, followed by careful execution staying true to the idea — was new to this largely Basel-trained graphic designer.
Lesson Two: Design Language
Massimo believed deeply that the job of a designer is to create a design language and then make a life’s work of exploring it. This was new to me: I had thought the graphic designer’s job was to either master the Basel style or adapt existing styles to suit one’s stylistic design challenge. The two key benefits I see to developing a disciplined, recognizable, consistent but versatile enough design language were that it allowed him and those who worked under him to focus on cracking the information architecture challenge at hand, as we weren’t tackling both design language and information design issues at the same time, and that it provided clear Vignelli brand identity out in the world.
Lesson Three: When, and when not, to stick to your guns
In the 1980’s modernists, including Massimo, were under assault by what we then called “postmodernists”, among whom were designers Massimo respected. He initially stuck to his design language, but was troubled by what was happening, wanting to dismiss it as a passing fad though suspecting it had more substance than that. His confusion lifted, and design language shifted some, when he found a chart created, as I remember, by Charles Jencks, that articulated the differences between the deep structures of modernism and postmodernism He distributed it to us all for our guidance and experimented with incorporating some its principles into his design language. A good lesson in when and how to respond to change.
But another time, he didn’t give a millimeter on something no one would have noticed: a decision I greatly admire. In the mid 1970’s Massimo was asked to submit a poster design on the theme of the melting pot for America’s Bicentennial Celebration. As an immigrant who had experienced Mussolini’s Italy, he greatly valued our much freer press. His idea was to create an American flag collage out of strips of New York City’s foreign language newspapers gathered on a single day: one newspaper per flag stripe. The poster was a hit as it made its way up the government's approval process until at the last level, a multilingual general saw reference to Vietnam in a few places, and said he would approve the poster only if Massimo eliminated them. Massimo refused because such censorship went against the point of the poster and what Massimo held dear about America, and his design was therefore not included in the poster collection.
Yet the Vignelli American flag does endure and remains relevant because of his decision to refuse to make the change, and his perseverance since in telling its story. To my mind, it also endures as the best symbol of his design skill, perseverance, integrity, timelessness, timeliness, and passion for what is right, good, true...and well expressed.
05.27.14
08:17
05.27.14
08:59
: )
05.27.14
09:11
Massimo, thank you for pointing us in the right direction “!”
Michael, thank you for writing this personal tribute to Massimo. When I was just starting my career as a designer, I had the opportunity to work for the special people at ITC on a design history book called Typographic Communications Today written by Edward Gottschall. In those days we still received the posters and books from Design firms. Part of my job was to send out license agreement letters for ITC, collect the artwork and have a studio photograph the original artwork. I can still remember the excitement of unpacking and looking at the original work from Vignelli Associates.
05.27.14
09:33
05.27.14
10:08
05.27.14
10:58
05.27.14
11:05
As a you study design, someone like Massimo is made immortal in your mind's eye. However, it comes as a painful reminder that he was most definitely human, in every expression of the english language.
As opposed to the God(s), he was of the earth – down to earth.
A warm presence burning with life that belonged to man.
Above all, it was his humanity which has made him timeless.
05.27.14
11:29
05.28.14
02:31
05.28.14
07:28
05.28.14
01:48
I've met Massimo once, you twice, and at one point both of you on the same day at Massimo's honorary degree at RIT so many years ago. I was a sophomore and Massimo's words so eloquently remain with me today. It is for your chronicle of candid experiences with Massimo, his influence on you and both of your influences on me that have made me a passionate designer (and the ability to appreciate the timelessness, thoughtfulness, and consequence of good design).
I'm truly sad that he is gone, but I am extremely thankful, that like you, my life and my career was affected by him. Your words are a testament to his affect on so many and for that I thank you.
05.28.14
03:11
beautiful soul. I met Massimo during a judging of a design show,
and to this day, I have never felt so charmed in all my life by a man.
We didn't talk about design then we were both just breathing it.
My condolence goes out to his family.
05.28.14
05:40
05.28.14
07:58
My first job in New York nearly 30 years ago was with Vignelli Associates, on the 3D side. I had just returned from a 3 year working stint in Europe after graduating from SCI-Arc, and was hired to work on the new Vignelli west side offices for one week . The week turned into years, in which time my budding career in Architecture changed forever, exposed to a new world of design at every detail, curated by Massimo and Lella. Massimo’s design sensibility was everywhere and in everything. The Vignelli’s brought us into their family, with their warmth and humor and occasional arguments about design. I won’t forget those late night charrettes drinking Campari or Johnny Walker with Massimo, Lella, David Law and Michelle Kolb, discussing proportion and grids and intangible details. Massimo could draw a quick perspective from his head with that Caran d'Ache pencil that would perfectly match what we built months later. He was a great designer, and he was also a great person. That combination is rare. I too thought that Massimo was old when I meet him (he was 53) , but have now changed my mind. We all owe much to Massimo.
05.28.14
08:20
Within all my projects—even the ones that have more visual layering to them—I keep in mind the importance of clarity, restraint and communicative intelligence, which Massimo crafted in the purest manner.
05.28.14
11:28
05.29.14
11:32
The first time Massimo met me, he said something totally charming: "Carapellucci. One of those easy names for me."
After knowing him for years, I heard him say that to many other Italian-Americans; it was one of his "lines," I realized. But that didn't change the thrill of receiving such a completely different message after a lifetime of people only complaining about my "long" name.
Plus I experienced the fun of being around someone who actually knew how to pronounce it. He liked to yell my name from one end of the office to the other -- "CarrrrrapayLOOchee!" -- which I loved.
One time we were discussing our childhoods and I told him I came from a family with six children. He scrunched his eyes in concentration, doing mental calculations on my age, I soon realized when he blurted out, "But they had tv then," in a genuinely perplexed, curious manner. I laughed and laughed (and told my parents the story later.) He's the only person I know who could say something that was actually kind of insulting in such a disarming, really funny way. You just couldn't dislike him.
Once I sat next to him at a design conference when a guy onstage was talking about his famous-designer boss. I whispered to Massimo, "Maybe someday I'll be up there talking about you." He whispered back, "Just don't bore them."
That would be impossible, Massimo. You, boring? In life and in death -- never.
05.30.14
02:48
I discuss life with a lot of people these days in my career. I often talk about "the dash". On your tombstone, there's a dash between the dates. What does that dash mean? Massimo left a dash of lasting impact and generosity, among so many other meaningful adjectives. We lost a legend but his legacy carries on.
06.03.14
05:14