Looking for information I bumped into a small (96 pages) e-book that I found really interesting. I would like to fix some thought about this master advices.
The title is The Vignelli Canon. The author is Massimo Vignelli, a very famous designer born in Milan.
Its works have received many awards and have been exhibited in all most important design museums through the world. Massimo Vignelli has worked in a wide variety of areas and his clients at Vignelli Associates, that he runs with his wife Lella, have included IBM, American Airlines, Knoll, Ducati and a long list of high-profiled companies.
I really suggest to read its book as a guideline text for a design that is not simply beautiful but meaningful.
Title: The Vignelli Canon
Author: Massimo Vignelli
Year: 2008
Available for free download on his website http://www.vignelli.com/home/bookmagazine/canon.html
As any designer knows what we really see and touch in a design product is just the top of the iceberg. Beauty is important but relative. There are many other, and most important, factors that make a simply beautiful thing a design object. Meaning and Appropriateness are a couple of them.
In the first part of the book, titled The Intangibles, Vignelli explains what a designer must to take care during the creative process where the final aim is meaningful design.
Semantics and Syntactics: the search of meaning. The designer needs to explore and understand the subjects in all its aspects to build a strong relationship with the target. He have to study the appropriate relationship between the elements. Nothing have to be casual, details are charged of meaning.
Pragmatics: efficiency is a very important point in any design. Clarify your intent before creating helps to reach clear results.
Discipline: attention to details requires discipline and rules. Its not a tight cage but an attitude to control the quality of the work.
Appropriateness and Visual Power: it needs to find the appropriate solution for the aim and the appropriate way to communicate the message. An high impact level can be reached by manipulating different materials each giving strength to the design.
Timelessness: again a masterpiece characteristic, endurance despite the time. Not every Identity redesigns are motivated. When a logo becomes part of the social imaginary it starts to belong to everyone and any change must be well studied.
Responsibility: the designer has three economic responsibility, towards himself, the client and the public. Remember all of three is very important.
In the second part, titled The Tangibles, Vignelli evaluates those elements that are all parts of the whole, the substance that composes the design object.
The master explains here in brief the use of essential tools such as grids, typeface, color and layouts. At a superficial glance they look like detached from the meaning but they combines to bring about it.
Vignelli shows how to manage different common designers products, for example company stationery and books, explaining his point of view on paper and sizes, binding and layout, typeface, colors and textures.
Paper carries meaning and its choice, kind and size, involves a complete awareness of the printing process which the designer must have.
This leads to the layout and to the white space that is inside. White space that isn't a waste but a way to separate and give serenity to the page.
What that stands out as advice for anyone who approaches the design way is that there are not simply creativity, talent and inspiration but mainly awareness of the tools, study of the meaning and respect for client and public.
Because design is not for designers.
In the first part of the book, titled The Intangibles, Vignelli explains what a designer must to take care during the creative process where the final aim is meaningful design.
Semantics and Syntactics: the search of meaning. The designer needs to explore and understand the subjects in all its aspects to build a strong relationship with the target. He have to study the appropriate relationship between the elements. Nothing have to be casual, details are charged of meaning.
Pragmatics: efficiency is a very important point in any design. Clarify your intent before creating helps to reach clear results.
Discipline: attention to details requires discipline and rules. Its not a tight cage but an attitude to control the quality of the work.
Appropriateness and Visual Power: it needs to find the appropriate solution for the aim and the appropriate way to communicate the message. An high impact level can be reached by manipulating different materials each giving strength to the design.
Timelessness: again a masterpiece characteristic, endurance despite the time. Not every Identity redesigns are motivated. When a logo becomes part of the social imaginary it starts to belong to everyone and any change must be well studied.
Responsibility: the designer has three economic responsibility, towards himself, the client and the public. Remember all of three is very important.
In the second part, titled The Tangibles, Vignelli evaluates those elements that are all parts of the whole, the substance that composes the design object.
The master explains here in brief the use of essential tools such as grids, typeface, color and layouts. At a superficial glance they look like detached from the meaning but they combines to bring about it.
Vignelli shows how to manage different common designers products, for example company stationery and books, explaining his point of view on paper and sizes, binding and layout, typeface, colors and textures.
Paper carries meaning and its choice, kind and size, involves a complete awareness of the printing process which the designer must have.
"There are infinite kinds of grids, but just one - the most appropriate - for any problem."Despite the large range of possibility the aim is to reach the most effective result. Grids, Margins, Columns and Modules are part of this process.
This leads to the layout and to the white space that is inside. White space that isn't a waste but a way to separate and give serenity to the page.
Conclusion
I really loved how in few pages Mr. Vignelli has painted a long-life study on all different design aspects.What that stands out as advice for anyone who approaches the design way is that there are not simply creativity, talent and inspiration but mainly awareness of the tools, study of the meaning and respect for client and public.
Because design is not for designers.
