By: Ben Nahmani

Massimo Vignelli

Massimo Vignelli has a unique style in his design. Especially for considering his career began in the early 1960’s. it is hard to generalize his style into simple terms or even describe it because he has done so much. Moreover, all of his work vary in categories. From brands/logos to furniture and even architecture. Massimo has done it all! But for now I’ll focus on his branding.

Massimo was able to work with some of today’s biggest companies while they were still just discovering themselves. These companies needed an image. Something that people would recognize, a logo worthy of their brand name. Massimo Vignelli was the perfect candidate for the job.

Vignelli designed the bloomingdale’s typography used as its brand/logo as well as on its signature “size” bags. Shown below:

The double o’s looped together and the unique curvy and smooth typography have remained the company’s typeface for over 4 decades! Talk about timeless.

Another brand that used Vignelli’s talent was American Airlines. Logo shown below:

A funny story about this design is that Massimo was always quick to say that the company forced him to add the eagle. I think it worked out well. Contrary to the previous example of his work, here Vignelli used straight lines with sharp angles that transition easily into the finer details of the eagle’s features, creating the feathers on the wings, the talons and its beak.

Finally the last piece I just had to write about was the 1970’s NYC subway map:

Here we can see that Vignelli combined aspects from both of his logo designs, using sharp angles and straight lines with smooth rounded edges that are easy on the eye but still flow very seamlessly. Just try following any of the subwaylines… the typography used in the map also show well thought out hierarchy between borough names, bodies of water and the names of subway stations. Additionally the negative space used represents actual land masses without subway lines running through them, truly a representative map of the city’s transportation infrastructure.