Comments on: The life of a designer is a life of fight against the ugliness

By: Robyn

Robyn — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:02:34 +0000

his quote may sound snobbish, but it’s very interesting bc in the movie Helvetica (instant on netflix.com) he is such a humble, sweet man. this quote really resonates with me. along with Antoine De Saint-exupery’s “You know you’ve achieved perfection in design, Not when you have nothing more to add, But when you have nothing more to take away.” By ugly as in the opposite of aesthetically harmonious. it can creep in everywhere, with imbalances in scale, composition, color, texture, etc.

By: Catriona

Catriona — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:06:53 +0000

I’ll make sure the quotes are formatted properly going forward . I quite honestly never paid attention to that, but I might as well make them correct!

By: Alessandro Segalini

Alessandro Segalini — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:47:59 +0000

Not to defend Mr. Vignelli at all, but maybe he meant for example, in a quotation, the use of proper curly quote marks and a period at the end of the of the sentence, no double space after the full stop, &c.

By: MLA

MLA — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:36:41 +0000

None of the terminology is qualified (What exactly does Vignelli consider to be ugly? etc.) which makes for a meaningless statement.

By: Rick Wolff

Rick Wolff — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:43:29 +0000

The successful designer has the interpersonal talent to distinguish the design disease from the client/patient. If the bad design you’re trying to “cure” him of is his own creation, if he identifies with it anywhere near as closely as you identify with your talent, you risk insult if you take this analogy beyond a certain point.

By: Vanessa Bender

Vanessa Bender — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:45:16 +0000

We also need to fight the boring – which to me can mean embracing something ugly if need be. Boring is terrible:-)