Massimo Vignelli’s The Vignelli Canon was a cool study. I really like the idea of semantics out into the context of art. I always thought of it in terms of language, but Vignelli is right in saying that art must have some sort of meaning; it cannot be arbitrary. Art is made for a purpose, for expression. The idea of syntax, the parts that make up words, as the details in art is very striking to me. Vignelli says the syntax of art must be consistent with the whole. I like the example of the NYC subway diagram. I am quite familiar with it, having been there all of last summer, but it is definitely an interesting example to use for “God is in the details.” In congruence with both semantics and syntax is pragmatics. “Whatever we do, if not understood, fails to communicate and is wasted effort” writes Vignelli. This is definitely a true statement. If you write something, draw something or otherwise create, what is the point if your message does not get across? Thus we must have our ideas and intentions in order so we may get them across to our audience.
This brings us to discipline, and again with the detail. There are rules in discipline and appropriateness. I like to think about the latter idea because so much artwork and literature is set in a certain frame-whether time period, idea, religion, etc. The more I look at this canon, I think of the literary canon and literary aspects. These are many of the same things we discuss, especially the idea of ambiguity. It is always interesting to try to guess the meaning of a poet or author, but interpretation is a form of expression. Each person who takes in a piece of work sees it differently and thus makes it their own. I think this is the amazing part of creations.
Vignelli’s concepts of design and one and visual power seem to go hand-in-hand for me. When designing something it needs to be cohesive, and this is what imparts the visual power and strength of the work. I also like the idea of intellectual elegance. Vignelli uses the word “sublime,” which I find so appropriate. We are sublime when creating and our work should represent the beauty of what we conceived it to be, at least that is our goal, as is timelessness, the lasting of our works.
The idea of responsibility is something I had not thought about, at least in how Vignelli poses it. He discusses an economic responsibility, to our own integrity, to the client and public at large. Beauty is one thing, but affordability gets people to actually look at your work.
Vignelli goes into more detail about what he calls “the tangibles.” These were a little less interesting for me to read about and seemed more of aspects to make a design perfect. I suppose some of these things I recognize when I do work for this class, but I never thought about them in so many words. I do however, think about many of these things for my newspaper, especially paper sizes, grids and columns and letterhead. These were ideas my editorial board reviewed when redesigning our paper. White space and layout are also big components of creating the weekly newspaper. Typeface was something I used and paid attention to for some of my assignments this week, particularly my book cover assignment. I will also us scale, texture and color in my design blitz this week as well.
Overall I thought Vignelli’s discussion on design was really interesting and relatable, to this class, my newspaper and my writing/reading. He touches on a lot of things that I never thought about, but recognized underneath the surface nonetheless.
