Massimo Vignelli was born in Milan, Italy. He is a designer who has done work such as package design, furniture design, public signage and showroom design through Vignelli Associates. He has said, “If you can design one thing, you can design everything,” and this is reflected in his broad range of work. Vignelli works firmly within the Modernist tradition, and focuses on simplicity through the use of basic geometric forms in all of his work. He has worked with companies such as IBM and American Airlines.

This most important virtue for a designer to possess. Discipline serves the designer from the project concept to its end realization. It is the governing factor in the intricacies of a concept, guiding the designer throughout the whole process. Without it, it it total anarchy, total randomness, pure chaos. Discipline is the attitude that helps us discern right from the wrong and guides us to achieve consistency of language in whatever we do. Discipline is what helps us navigate through the social context in which we operate. Discipline is what makes us responsible toward ourselves, toward our clients, toward the the society in which we live. It is through discipline that we are able to improve ourselves, mentally and physically; to offer the best of ourselves to everything around us, including every project on which we work. —Massimo Vignelli: Vignelli A to Z

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unfortunately his 72′ map was replaced by this awful new map:

which is clearly a failure at being legible and a map. most of the curves are unnecessary, do we really need to know that the metro is not a straight line? no one cares. The purpose is to be legible and clear, which it is not.

hear more about the map in the film Helvetica, here is a scene where he is talking about the new york map.

American Airlines logo and logotype he designed, which is still in use today.

package design for Knoll.

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