“Great design should be invisible, should just exist,” says Vignelli.
Many of these principles given in the definition (prev. referred to and accurately quoted by Mssr. Snooch are arguable universal and applicable to web design - not only must we organize our coding in a way that makes it easy to navigate and build on, but the final display of our information needs a simply identifiable hierarchy if we want users to find value in our sites and return. On the big ‘ol WWW it’s too easy to move on to something that doesn’t require an owner’s manual to navigate.
Even his talk on fonts applies very easily to web design - we’re limited in what fonts we can use, and most of them appear on his list of the classics. This is widely the result of standard available fonts, but nonetheless a concern that must be dealt with in web design (the CSS-based efforts to yield greater font styling aren’t up to speed to be viable on a large scale).
Vignelli’s career exemplifies that - he’s designed not only graphics and corporate identities, but cups, tables, showrooms, and clothing (not to be confused with clothing brand Mossimo). The breadth of projects he’s been involved in shows that principles he articulates can easily be applied to new terrain, esp. web design.
Simplicity was for me the biggest take away... speaking of take away, LOVED his point about subtraction as better than adding on. I almost ascribed to that philosophy in this blog post by deleting my last rambling one on Google and not posting this week. Alas, Jeff, I didn’t want to let ya down.
In general, Vignelli emphasized the importance of having a purpose and understanding your audience/client. I think this was best illustrated by his design of the coffee cups with handles that would make us over-indulging Americans burn ourselves very quickly (but fit perfectly with the imbibing habits of this lovable octogenarian and his gal Lella.
Worthy of checking out is his online canon geared to help younger designers. I was excited to hear it was free.
paul
Note: until the mic switch, it was incredibly hard to understand him from the back of the auditorium.
Sidenote: Massimo’s bell bottoms in one photo = COMPLETELY timeless...
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I definitely agree with your comments about how the things he talked about could be applied to Web design. It seems to all be about a mixture of functionality and simplicity. It doesn't have to be all about crazy graphics and colors. It can look good and have a minimal amount of content. As long as it functions and is easy to use, it's good design. I think that a Web site would go under the category of needing to be less about art and more about design
ReplyDeletehaha- about the bell bottoms comment.
ReplyDeleteI also found the coffee-cup stack brilliant...although I can't help but wonder if consumers on the other side of the Atlantic are just as worthy of scorn now that the European Union has radically changed people's values.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, despite the mic issues, it was a thought-provoking, engaging experience..viva Vignelli!
Thank you for quoting me Paul -- I feel so cool!
ReplyDeleteI also loved the line about subtraction being better than addition -- this is like everything I am in terms of my design creativity.
I'm glad knowing that one of the most successful designers ever, agrees with what I think about design too.
Although, he did come up with it first.
Out of all of the things he designed, I didn't like the coffee cups though -- I think they looked kinda dumb, and the idea was dumb too.
If a person spills their coffee or tea every time they pour it, then the cups aren't the problem.