“The Vignelli Canon” Review
This article can be found at http://www.vignelli.com/canon.pdf Here are some bullet points with take-aways from the article:
1. People know very little about the complexity behind design work.
2. Design shouldn’t be reduced to just rules, but there are some things that will enhance the creative mind in design aspects.
3.I really like how he broke it down into different subcategories (Semantics, Syntactics, Pragmatics, Discipline, Appropriateness, Ambiguity, Design is One, Visual Power, Intellectual Elegance, Timelessness, Responsibility, and Equity).
4. I like his view on semantics and the idea that the topic being created must be 100% understood in order to make it good.
5. Syntatics = consistency. And design must be consistent.
6. Make the design sensible. Create pragmatically.
7. If you want to make good designs, you must be disciplined! It should be clean and well put together.
8. Appropriateness does not only apply to what’s being conveyed, but how it is conveyed. It depends on the materials used, the lighting, the words, and the craftsmanship.
9. Make it ambiguous. It can be interpreted many different ways by many different people.
10. “Design is One.” All design requires discipline. It may look very different but they are essentially created the same.
11. A design should be visually powerful… if it’s not, then what’s the point of it?
12. “Intellectual Elegance” is referring to the extensive knowledge behind a piece that is used to convey it gracefully and respectfully.
13. A well-thought out design should be able to be used for a long time. Make it timeless.
14. Responsibility is a form of discipline in design. The three levels of responsibility are to ourselves, to our clients, and to the public.
15. When it comes to creating a design for something like a corporate company, remain unbiased and fair.
16. The physical materials used for design are just as important as the concept and work behind the design. Although he focuses on pen to paper kind of design and we are focused on digital design, it was still very interesting to read his opinions and advice.
17. I appreciated the fact that he included a ton of examples of what he was talking about. It made it easy to follow and really helped my understand the concept he was explaining.