Massimo Vignelli

Massimo Vignelli was born Jan. 1931 in Milan, Italy. He has work in many areas packaging design, furniture design and graphic designer. In his early life, Vignelli studied architecture at Politecnico di Milano and later the Universita di Architect, Venice. In 1996  Vignelli started the New York branch of a new company, Unimark International which eventually became the largest design firm in the world. One of the most recognizable work that Massimo worked on was for American Airlines.

Unfortunately American Airlines just changed the logo which personally I do not find attractive at all. But since there is a merger between them and United airlines I suppose the change was inevitable. The American Airline logo that was created by Vignelli def. is an iconic symbol for the airline.

Massimo also designed the iconic signage for the New York City Subway system.


In 1971 Massimo resigned from Unimark and started his own business with his wife who now reside in NYC. Their company is called Bignelli Associates. Some other well known company that Massimo has made designs for was IBM, Knoll, Bloomingdale's and American Airlines.

Massimo also has accumulated numerous awards. His first award was in 1964 and he was presented the Gran Premio Triennale Di Milano. Since then he has accumulated 22 awards, one being the AIGA gold medal and his most recent in 2005 Architecture award from the American Academy of arts and letters in New York.

Below are some of Vignelli furniture designs. As you can tell they are very modern and sleek. The furniture brand is called Knoll which is one of the furniture design company he worked for through out his furniture design career.





Here is a little fun fact, Massimo and his wife agreed to donate the entire archive of their design work in 2008 to the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester NY. The archive is being exhibited in a new building that was designed by both Lella and Massimo Vignelli. The building is now known as The Vignelli Center for Design and Studies.

Massimo also was apart of a documentary that we actually watched in class which was Helvetica and another documentary called typeface for the same name.

Vignelli stated that the building will house comprehensive archive of graphic design, furniture and objects.

Massimo Vignelli has said "If you can design one thing, you can design everything"