It’s Manuals Monday! Every Monday we feature an excerpt from a graphics standards manual from the archives.
Today’s featured manual is really a preliminary design concept for the architectural graphics for the Guggenheim Museum in Bliboa, Spain in 1996 by Vignelli Associates.
We found an interesting article/brochure in the archives, written by Gail Deibler Finke entitled “Onaketa” or “Welcome” to the Guggenheim, which talks about the challenges of including not just two languages on the signs but three: Spanish, English and Basque.
J. Graham Hanson was the project designer on this project and he discusses working on a building designed by architect, Frank Gehry, and the goals of creating signage in an unconventional building in the same article/brochure.
“We all agreed that the goal was restraint, rather than expression,“ explains J. Graham Hanson, project designer for Vignelli Associates. “Frank Gehry appreciated our use of restraint. He makes an artistic statement with his work, but he considers his buildings to be a natural expression of their purpose. And he wants the environmental graphics to be a natural extension of his architecture.”
At the first major meeting between Gehry, Vignelli and Guggenheim Director Thomas Krenz, “Someone threw out the question. ‘what if someone did get lost?’ Everyone agreed that that would be fine,” Hanson said.
The majority of the Bilbao museum’s galleries don’t naturally progress from one to the next, instead leading from a gallery to an open space, or even out of the building. But the designers felt that following a meandering route through the three-story, unconventional space would be a rewarding experience, even if visitors weren’t entirely certain where they were headed.
Vignelli Associates did a number of design projects for the various Guggenheim locations, including the visual identity for the NYC Guggenheim, various exhibition catalogs, and even designed the seating for the auditorium at the Guggenheim Bliboa.
We’ve shared a couple artifacts form the archives related to the Guggenheim in the past: http://vignellicenter.tumblr.com/search/guggenheim
Stay tuned for more about their work for the Guggenheim Museum!
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Architectural Graphics Preliminary Design Concept, 1996
Massimo and Lella Vignelli papers
Vignelli Center for Design Studies
Rochester, New York
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Found in the archives!
Unrealized DC Metro map designs. Although Massimo Vignelli, while at Unimark International, designed the signage for the Washington DC Metro subway in 1968, he didn’t design the map (which was designed by Lance Wyman).
But we recently uncovered a variety of ideas mocked up on these presentation boards. We also found some original sketches for the signage! Stay tuned!
Woa!
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(Source: designbby)
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Connecting Collections: Cooper Hewitt
Through March 8th, we will be featuring items from the Vignelli papers that are also in the collections of the Cooper Hewitt, the Smithsonian Design Museum. We are very excited to have the museum director, Caroline Baumann, as our next Design Conversations speaker and wanted to highlight the Vignelli collections connections.
This Knoll Poster designed by Massimo Vignelli has been collected by museums all over the world, including the Vignelli Center for Design Studies and the Cooper-Hewitt.
See this on the Cooper-Hewitt website: https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18734823/
Because we are home to the Vignellis’ entire professional archives, we have many unique items such as hand drawn sketches, as well as the final pieces. Researchers often come to our archives if they want to learn the story and process behind the designs. Unfortunately we haven’t found any process sketches related to the creation of this poster, but here you can see a sketch of the poster for the book layout for design: Vignelli.
Details about Caroline Baumann’s Design Conversations lecture on our website: http://vignellicenter.rit.edu/events/lecture-design-at-cooper-hewitt/
Note: This poster is also on view in our galleries!
Knoll International poster
47 1/2” x 32”
FF K, Massimo and Lella Vignelli Papers
Vignelli Center for Design Studies
Rochester, New YorkSketches for design: Vignelli book (circa 1981)
pencil and crayon on paper
14” x 17”
Box 454, Massimo and Lella Vignelli Papers
Vignelli Center for Design Studies
Rochester, New York -
Vignelli Cifuentes Waterhouse NYC Subway Detail Series | Designboom Shop →
This series of six posters was designed by Massimo Vignelli, Beatriz Cifuentes and Yoshiki Waterhouse. Each is a tight crop of the New York City Subway Diagram at matching scale. The set has been printed in ten Pantone inks on acid-free archival cover-weight paper. While supplies last. “The six posters are based on an early
(Source: designboom.com)
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Milano = design
COSMIT is the company that runs a number of design fairs in Milan including the Salone del Mobile (aka Milan Furniture Fair) which is happening right now. In 1994, the Vignellis designed a “comprehensive identification and promotions program, including the signage for the fairgrounds” for COSMIT. In 1998, the program received the “Compasso d’Oro” award and is still in use today.
Here are some examples of various brochures the Vignellis designed in the 1990s for COSMIT.
Salone del Mobile brochure, 1995
4” x 8 1/4”
Box 94, Massimo and Lella Vignelli Papers
Vignelli Center for Design Studies
Rochester, New YorkSalone del Mobile Milano brochure
8 1/4” x 11 5/8”
Box 94, Massimo and Lella Vignelli Papers
Vignelli Center for Design Studies
Rochester, New YorkSalone del Mobile Castiglioni brochure
8 1/4” x 11 5/8”
Box 94, Massimo and Lella Vignelli Papers
Vignelli Center for Design Studies
Rochester, New YorkSalone del Mobile News brochure, 1996
8 1/4” x 11 5/8”
Box 92, Massimo and Lella Vignelli Papers
Vignelli Center for Design Studies
Rochester, New York -
The inventive typography of Herb Lubalin is a treasure to hold →
The inventive typography of Herb Lubalin is a treasure to hold
(Source: typorn.org)
