Master designer critiques city layout

He might have designed the New York subway guide and the Italian rail’s corporate identity with local cultural motifs, but is aggrieved over the loss of indigenous traditions across the world. What Massimo Vignelli, international “master” of design, is excited about is the unfathomable paradox that is Mumbai, with its slums nestled near “tall buildings” and “horrible” roads.

For a man who has devoted over half a century to style and cryptic visual appeal, Vignelli also cannot understand why there is no breathing space between Mumbai’s buildings. “There is no way for light or air to come in,” he says, appalled, and offers a word of advice, “If you can’t do it right, don’t do it.”

His versatility and stature sit lightly on his 76-year-old lean frame but this heavyweight in design has built such an imposing body of work over half a century that we better listen. He is responsible for the corporate identity design of United Colors of Benetton, American Airlines, the Washington metro, the Italian railway termini and has created designs for a wide spectrum of products from furniture to books and jewellery.

This Italian-born designer, who studied architecture, is a recipient of several honorary doctorates and awards and his works are on permanent display at the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Montreal and the Die Neue Sammlung museum in Munich, among others. Vignelli, who is in the city to talk at the ICOGRADA design week being hosted by Industrial Design Centre at IIT Bombay, is happy with the evolution of design as a discipline.

To him, “Design is organisation of information. It’s not prettiness. It has to become more simple, effective and more powerful.”

Abstraction is welcome if it’s meaningful but the key to a good design is its ability to communicate. “Abstract design cannot be equated with an abstract painting,’’ he points out.

So are there national trends or developments in design? “It’s very difficult to develop a national language of design — to find commonality of a design language across the country,’’ says Vignelli. “The language of design is very international, which is good. But it is also bad because we are losing out on local flavours — like dialects — which are fast disappearing in a world that strives for convenience.” Dialects, he says, help us understand design better. “With the profession of design being very new, it adds to the difficulty,’’ he says.

Known to execute the entire gamut of styling — from logos to interiors —  for a client, Vignelli sees design as a whole. Contrary to the Indian educational system which offers varied design programmes, he sees design moving away from specialisation in the future.

“The discipline of design is one. You approach a chair or car from the point of view of visual appeal, comfort and practicality though the degree of complications could vary,” he says.

Though a designer can design “anything,’’ every designer need not be up to it. “It depends on his personality and knowledge,” he observes. Vignelli believes that design impacts the general sense of aesthetics in a population.

“Have you noticed newspapers get uglier the more you travel into the provinces? That’s because they don’t employ trained people for the job. But by being ugly, they keep the tastes of those people low.  Design refines the mind,’’ he says, shaking his head at the unsophisticated finish of a building nearby.