Massimo Vignelli

Massimo Vignelli stated that "If you can design one thing, you can design everything,”. This can be seen within his work broad range of work he has created which includes package design to furniture design to public signage.

My favourite piece of work of his is the work he did for American Airlines in 1967. Vignelli is featured in the film we watched in the studio, 'Helevtica' , talking about the logo he designed. Within the film he reminds us as an audience how successful the design is as American Airlines is 'the only airline in the last 40 years which has not changed it's identity', he even jokes himself that the logo cannot be improved as 'they have the best already'.

American airlines identity and branding by Vignelli associates, 1967

Vignelli other high profile works have included designing the New York Subway graphics in 1972, which was recently updated in 2008 by Vignelli Associates to make the map more accurate and efficient. I think that the map looks like a piece of art in its own right with the choice of colours and type, however, I believe the stylised and asethically pleasing map isn't as clear and easy to understand as our own London Transport map. Perhaps I am being unfair to Vignellis map as I am far less familiar to New York's tube system it as I am to London's, yet I don't believe it to be as easy to navigate around. Still like it though.

Transportation graphics for New York Subway
by Vignelli Associates, 1972

and this is how it has been updated..

Vignelli Associates used a bold and striking approach when designing a poster for Knoll International the furniture company. I like this piece of work and find the composition and arrangement of letters, which make up the company's name, interesting and effective within the poster.

Vignelli also triumphs in Product Design as well as Graphics. He explains that he likes all of his work to be 'visually powerful, intellectually elegant and above all timeless.' I think that this design ethic can be found in all his work, especially the 'Dual Time Watch' which includes two simple and elegant watch faces to set to different time zones.

Vignelli Associates Dual Time Watch, 2002

Another of Vignelli Associate's wider company profile clients has been the store 'United Colours of Benetton'. Vignelli worked with the clothing store's creator Luciano Benetton to create a corporate identity which would be recognisable to customers and reflect the shops our products and simple non-fussy design. Viginelli's design for 'United Colours of Benetton' is easily recognised and is a good example for simple and successful design.

Vignelli Associates, United Colours of Benetton, 1995

FUSE Publications

Based in Canada, a quarterly publication that examines art, culture and politics. Each issue contains a vibrant mix of opinion, commentary on the arts, cultural analysis, interviews and critical reviews of art exhibitions and books.

FUSE was a revolution in both typography and the format it chose for publication. FUSE is a publication that enables creatives to showcase their skills beyond constraints of the commercial world. The role of fuse was to promote typographic innovation, all about new typefaces, surrealism, electro-magnetism and virtual typography.

FUSE was created to provoke innovative and thoughtful typography.

Being relaunched by D&AD designing its 20th issue:

Saul Bass

B. May 8th 1920

D. April 25th 1996

American graphic designer and film maker.

Studied at the Brooklyn College.

He began by creating the print work for film ads. His work with Otto Preminger for the film poster of the 1954 film Carmen Jones impressed Preminger enough to be asked to create the title sequence for the film too.

"Bass became notorious in the industry after creating the title sequence for Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). The subject of the film was a jazz musician's struggle to overcome his heroin addiction, a taboo subject in the mid-'50s. Bass decided to create a controversial title sequence to match the film's

controversial subject. He chose the arm as the central image, as the arm is a strong image relating to drug addiction. The titles featured an animated, black paper cut-out arm of a heroin addict. As he expected, it caused quite a sensation."

Saul Bass the went on to create numerous film title sequences and company logos through his success and recognition gained as he worked after The Man With The Golden Arm.

"Saul Bass’s work touches people. Not just designers, or students, or observers of design, or those who know and can explain what a designer is and does, but simply people—many, many people." - David R.Brown

Selected film title sequences and respective dates

• Carmen Jones (1954)
• The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
• The Seven Year Itch (1955)
• Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)
• Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
• Vertigo (1958)
• Anatomy of a Murder (1958)
• The Big Country (1958)
• North by Northwest (1959)
• Psycho (1960)
• Spartacus (1960)
• Exodus (1960)
• Advise and Consent (1960)
• Ocean's Eleven (1960)
• West Side Story (1961)
• Walk on the Wild Side (1962)
• The Victors (1963)
• Nine Hours to Rama (1963)
• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
• The Cardinal (1963)
• In Harm's Way (1965)
• Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
• Grand Prix (1966)
• Seconds (1966)
• Broadcast News (1987)
• Big (1988)
• The War of the Roses (1989)
• Goodfellas (1990)
• Cape Fear (1991)
• Doc Hollywood (1991)
• The Age of Innocence (1993)
• Casino (1995)

Logos and other designs

Celanese (1965) Continental Airlines (1968) Dixie (1969) Frontier Airlines (1981) Girl Scouts of the USA (1978) Japan Energy Corporation (1993) Kibun Foods (1964) Kose Cosmetics (1959) Lawry's Foods (1959) Geffen Records (1980)

Minami Sports (1991) Minolta (1978) Rockwell International (1968) Security First National Bank (1966) United Airlines (1974) United Way (1972) Warner Books (1963) Warner Communications (1972) Wesson Oil (1964) YWCA (1988)

Alan Kitching

Alan Kitching is world renowned for his use of the letterpress in typographic design and his printmaking. Using wood and metal letterforms he creates visuals both for commissions and for his own limited edition prints at his solo shows in London and Barcelona. He has also contributed to shows in the Pompidou Centre Paris, the British Library and the Barbican Art Gallery London.

Appointed a Royal Designer for Industry in 1994, Alan is also an honorary Fellow of The Royal College of Art and visiting professor to our very own University of the Arts London. So, if we're lucky, we'll have workshops like these that he conducted for Eye Magazine.

Alan has an interesting way of working. When he gets a commission, he explains, he doesn't do a rough sketch. "By the time I've done it, I've done it... I work a little bit like an actor. I have to learn my lines. I have to get the copy into my memory so I'm not looking at the words on the paper anymore. I learn the lines, I go through it again and again so I know what to copy off by heart". He doesn't use sketching to plan out his arrangements, he works as closely and directly with the physical letter-forms. In his poster, African, he explains that the placement of the C is where it is because that particular font has that particular width, not because he'd planned it that way before starting.

'More Pricks than Kicks', one of his less coloured works, creates an impressive feeling of depth by partially inverting the colour of the overlaid small text. The burnt-looking larger heading in the background looks charred and distorts the reading further.

This iconic-looking typographic map of the Southbank immediately gives you a sense of what it is about. I can't quite tell whether I'm reading the words or just looking at the picture.