Massimo Vignelli Quotes

I like it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all, timeless.

There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence.

Styles come and go. Good design is a language, not a style.

If you do it right, it will last forever.

If you can design one thing, you can design everything.

I see graphic design as the organization of information that is semantically correct, syntactically consistent and pragmatically understandable.

You do design because you feel it inside; you have a moral issue to spread quality in our environment.

A grid is like underwear, you wear it but it's not to be exposed.

The first thing you need to make clear to a client is that you aren't there to answer his wants but to answer his needs.

Graphic Design is the communication of information in an appropriate visual manner.

Intellectual elegance [is] a mind that is continually refining itself with education and knowledge. Intellectual elegance is the opposite of intellectual vulgarity.

Design is not art. Design is utilitarian, art is not.

Good design is ubiquitous and forever.

The life of a designer is a life of fight: fight against the ugliness.

A designer without a sense of history is worth nothing

There are people that thinks that type should be expressive. They have a different point of view from mine.

The only way to stay in fashion is never be in. If you are never in fashion, you are never out of fashion.

In design, be logical, search for truth, be clear.

The repercussion of ugliness is endless.

It’s not important to develop your own style but your own approach.

Greed is really the religion of vulgarity.

The computer is really like a pencil, you know. It used to be. The pencil can do anything you want to, but you have to do it, and the same is with the computer.

It is better to starve than get a bad client.

The pencil you leave it there, and it's dead. It doesn't do anything and it doesn't move by itself. It doesn't offer anything; it's totally submissive to you.

One life is too short for doing everything.

I'm not a designer, I'm a sifter. I can sift everything, all the time. My sift level lines keep shaking all the time for everything that is around.

Any color works if you push it to the extreme.

Design without discipline is anarchy, an exercise of irresponsibilit y.

Scale is extremely important. Scale is not dimensions. Dimensions are physical and scales are mental.

If you do the best thing everyday of your life, but nothing shakes you nor shakes the table for you and others, it is stale and its not worth it.

The scale relates to everything. The thickness of a pipe, the thickness of a leg of the furniture. Even color could have a scale.

...if all people doing desktop publishing were doctors we would all be dead!

Middle management is a disease.

You cannot play the piano by telling a pianist what to do, go a little more to the left or to the right. And the same is for the computer, really. You have to play yourself to get the most out of it.

Most of the manufacturers they tend to design things to sell they are more interested in the money side than anything else.