An essay-based project which involved both a critical analysis of the work of Massimo Vignelli, and the design and build of a webpage using HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

Brief

Research

I began this project by selecting a designer I wanted to write about. I chose Massimo Vignelli, as I had seen some of his work before and wanted to explore further, and had heard of his unique design philosophy.

I started by finding out as much as I could about Vignelli through web articles and reading a number of his books and books (The Vignelli Canon, Vignelli from A to Z, Vignelli Transit Maps, Unimark International - The Design of Business and the Business of Design).

From this research, I posed the question of my essay: How did Massimo Vignelli strive for utilitarian design?

Writing

I began writing by picking the key points I wanted to hit in my essay and arranging them in an order that I felt made sense for the question.

Next, I began to expand on each point. Working on each point allowed me to discover connections between information which in turn helped me to create an answer to the question of the essay.

I felt the writing process went really well, and while tricky in parts, they way in which I worked allowed me to produce a concise yet insightful essay which answered the question I wanted to answer.

Webpage Design

To start the design side of this project, I started sketching out ideas for how I wanted my webpage to look. I thought a really interesting approach would be to look at Vignelli’s work and design a webpage which reflected that, due to the highly typographic nature of the work.

I took influence from some of Vignelli’s early work and the typographical structure of his manifesto, “The Vignelli Canon”.

The colour palette was also taken from his early work, consisting of a simple off-white and black, and a strong red.