The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design.
Massimo VignelliRead
A designer without a sense of history is worth nothing
Interpretation
A successful designer must understand and appreciate historical context to create meaningful work.
Massimo Vignelli emphasizes the importance of historical awareness in design. Without a sense of history, a designer lacks the depth and context needed to innovate and contribute effectively to the field, making their work less valuable.
In practice
Using this quote in a design workshop to highlight the significance of historical influences.
The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design.
Designers take care of everything around us. Everything that is around us, this table, this chair, this lamp, this pen has been designed. All of these things, everything has been designed by somebody.
Styles come and go. Good design is a language, not a style.
Design without discipline is anarchy, an exercise of irresponsibilit y.
Good design is ubiquitous and forever.
I see graphic design as the organization of information that is semantically correct, syntactically consistent and pragmatically understandable.
I've worked with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years, and we have this magnificent photographer, Tad Motoyama. He takes these wonderful, wonderful animal pictures. All through the years he's given me copies of these pictures. Well, I have all these gorgeous ones, so I said, 'Tad, I want to do a book with your picture on one side.'
There are a couple of strategies for writing about an absence or writing about a loss. One can create the person that was lost, develop the character of the fiancee. There's another strategy that one can employ, maybe riskier... Make the reader suffer the loss of the character in a more literal way.
I can get excitement watching rain on a puddle. And then I paint it. Now, I admit, there are not too many people who would find that exciting. But I would. And I want life thrilling and rich. And it is. I make sure it is.
This idea that a book can either be about character and feeling, or about politics and idea, is just a false binary. Ideas are an expression of the feelings and the intense emotions we hold about the world.
All we ever wanted was for Tupac to have the opportunity to tell his story.
The ideal artist is he who knows everything, feels everything, experiences everything, and retains his experience in a spirit of wonder and feeds upon it with creative lust.
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