Wednesday 28 May 2014
Meeting the Vignelli’s
When we arrive at the Vignellis’ Upper East Side apartment to interview Lella, her husband Massimo answers the door. Their combined home and studio is a duplex apartment, dominated by a giant, lead window. We chat while waiting for Lella to appear – she is not entirely well. A storm rages outside and every so often a lightning strike rattles the church-like window. Later, when we listen to the tape, there’s so much rumbling at times that we can barely hear what we’re saying.
Suddenly Massimo looks up and says, »I think that’s Lella,« sensing her presence. And there she stands, on the balcony that looks out over the large, high-ceilinged room. She comes down to talk and introduces herself. Lella Vignelli is regal. Though today, at the age of 78, she is no longer working, she is sharp, impeccable and has an air of knowing something the rest of us don’t. After all these years in the US, her accent is still unmistakably Italian. Despite her health issues, she projects authority, and it’s easy to see why clients and suppliers did as she said.
Lella and Massimo Vignelli met when they were very young. They both studied architecture in Venice and later moved back and forth between Italy and the US, running a successful business, the Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture, in Milan with big clients like Pirelli and Olivetti. When the pair settled in New York at the end of the 1960s, they, Ralph Eckerstrom and others launched Unimark International, one of the world’s biggest design firms at the time. Lella says they felt like missionaries during those first years; in the US there was much in need of designing.
The Vignellis have a holistic approach to design that they put forward in their book Design is One. Lella’s broad and impressive output proves their motto: »If you can design one thing, you can design everything.« She has turned her hand to every kind of project, from furniture, interiors, showrooms and exhibitions, to product design, silverware and clothing. When we meet, Lella wears a gray pantsuit and jewelry of her own design. The furniture we sit on is from their shared portfolio, and Massimo pours water into glasses he designed. All follows from a directive that is both prosaic and like a command from a higher sphere: »If you can’t find it, design it.«
Ever since they first met, their private relationship has been impossible to separate from their intellectual and creative partnership. In an interview with the couple, from the early 1980s, Lella says that they did compete with each other in the beginning, but that the ambition- to one-up one another in those early years was soon replaced by cooperation. They answer all questions using the pronoun »we.«
Not everyone has understood just how closely they have worked, and the couple is frustrated that Massimo has often gotten sole credit for projects that they have done together, or »for my work,« as Lella sharply puts it.
Throughout art and design history there are a smattering of couples in the same profession. Cipe Pineles and William Golden, and later Will Burtin, for example. But it is more common to find a pairing of two related professions, such as Massimo and Lella Vignelli – graphic- designer and industrial designer. The role distribution, and how the female partner, or wife, has been involved in the process, may not always be clear to others. Bertha Goudy and Edna Beilenson helped their men with typesetting, and Ray Eames took an active part in the Eames’ work as a couple.
The issue of partnership has often surfaced in our work on Hall of Femmes. For us the image of a professional creative couple has always held a certain allure – a partnership in love and work. Perhaps because we too are a »design couple,« albeit not in the romantic sense. For ten years we worked together in a seamless partnership in which it was impossible to divine who did what. In our case this never meant that one of us was obscured by the other. Do women who work in tandem with their men run a higher risk of this?
Admitting to ourselves that the Vignellis’ private relationship inte-rests us as much as their professional one feels shameful, almost taboo. Like everyone else, we’ve been taught that a designer’s actual work is the aspect important to a historical biography. To intrude into the private sphere would be messy. This seems even more loaded when it comes to women. If a woman is living with a man who is successful in her field, people’s opinions of her professional life will likely be influenced by it. Martha Scotford writes about this in her introductory essay. So, in deference to their life-long collaboration, we decided to interview the Vignellis together, although Lella is our main interest.
After the interview, Lella and Massimo walk us to the door. Mas-simo remarks how important it is that Lella get the book she deserves.
We have to agree with him on that. Lella smiles her most radiant smile and says »I never let myself be intimidated by the attitudes
of others.«
Preface from Hall of Femmes: Lella Vignelli, published 2013
Editor: Sarah Clyne Sundberg
Buy the book here.
Buy the poster here
Posted by: admin 10:56
Categories: Books, Lella Vignelli, Massimo Vignelli, Preface, Sarah Clyne Sundberg
Wednesday 11 December 2013
Årets julklappar
Nu ska ni få den enda lista ni behöver inför julen. Det är lite oklart om det är en inköpslista eller önskelista, både och förmodligen – det vet ju alla att man alltid hittar bäst presenter till sig själv. Det är lika bra vi säger det på en gång, den är väldigt partisk, ingenting du lika gärna kan slöjda själv, allt är kvalitet men inget är gratis!
1. Självklart vill vi att alla du känner ska läsa alla våra böcker och att väggen som är det första du ser när du slår upp ögonen på morgonen, hela tunnelbanevagnen på väg till jobbet, utrymmet bredvid kaffemaskinen på kontoret och varenda lägenhet du tjuvkikar in i på kvällarna alla ska vara tapetserade med Hall of Femmes affischer. I år gav vi ut tre nya böcker och lika många affischer, om Janet Froelich, Lella Vignelli och Tomoko Miho. Dessutom gjorde vi Bloggboken, där du som vill julevila skrollfingrarna kan läsa Hall of Femmes blogg i bokformat. Dessutom har Ruth Ansel formgivit en fin bok förra året och dom här fina anteckningsböckerna har Paula Scher gjort. För den som redan har allt Hall of Femmes-relaterat (vi älskar dig), och hellre vill blicka in i framtiden, föreslår vi att köpa biljetter till det här eventet vi ordnar på Arkitektur och Designcentrum, True Freedom can only be collective – a seminar celebrating Lina Bo Bardi.
2. Årets största konsthändelse i Stockholm – vid sidan av Barbara Krugers föreläsning i maj – var förmodligen Cindy Shermans utställning på Moderna museet. Årets konstkatalog är helt följdriktigt Stefania Malmstens katalog för utställningen, där litterära texter blandas med konstbilder. En annan av våra favoritkatalogformgivare Anders Wester har gjort den här om Charles Long.
3. Kören The Sweptaways 10 år som Stockholms mest lysande popkör har blivit till en kombinerad foto- och notbok (kan även köpas på Bondegatan 11 under kontorstid) med arr och nyskrivna texter av kören själv. När alla julaftonsvännerna gått hem, sätter du på den nya skivan och sjunger med, svajande framför granen.
4. För dig som känner, eller själv är, en fåfäng bebis – här är dom mjuka paketen från en av våra svenska favoritformgivare, Ida Wessel och hennes klädmärke för barn, Tuut kids.
5. För dig som känner någon som är – eller själv är – ålderslös. För utan att ha läst den ännu, föreställer vi oss att Bea Uusmas bok Expeditionen kan ges bort till vem som helst, i vilken ålder som helst. Formgivning av Lotta Kühlhorn är såklart den andra anledningen att köpa boken.
6. The Gentlewoman kan du köpa en prenumeration på här. Prenumerationer är för övrigt världens bästa present, spridd över året och alltid lika glad överraskning när ett nytt nummer kommer. Vi rekommenderar även Mattias Åkerbergs ambitiösa nyhetsbrev Please Copy Me. Och för fanzineälskaren: maila me@johanbjorkegren.se och beställ 44 sidor talang.
9. Till den som är mer teoretiskt lagd, köp Hello World eller 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design. Och för den som vill ha en bok som räcker i flera år och är så tung att man inte behöver ge bort ett gymkort, köp Svensk illustration – en visuell historia. Och såklart: In som ett lamm, ut som en tigrinna.
10. När du köpt alla dom här sakerna, föreslår vi att du slår in allt i rättesnöret.
Posted by: admin 16:46
Tags: Bea Uusma, Cindy Sherman, Ida Wessel, Lotta Kühlhorn, Please Copy Me, Rättviseförmedlingen, Sara Teleman, Steven Heller, The Sweptaways, Vanja Hermele
Categories: Alice Rawsthorn, Anders Wester, Böcker, Humor, Lella Vignelli, Lillian Bassman, Magazines, Massimo Vignelli, Paula Scher, Pengar, Penny Martin, Ruth Ansel, Stefania Malmsten, Tomoko Miho
Monday 15 October 2012
Dagens citat
”When I go to Italy it is like a tremendous orgasm for my ego. Every train station has my graphics.”
Massimo Vignelli
Friday 14 September 2012
Knoll i London
I London öppnar nu en utställning om Herbert Matter som bla arbetade för Knoll 1946–1966, innan makarna Vignelli tog över Knollkontot på 70-talet. Matter är för övrigt mannen som gjorde originalet till den affisch som Paula Scher gjorde en parafras på, och som hon sen fick ägna hela 80-talet åt att försvara i hennes och Tibor Kalmans designbeef.
Se mer här.
Och så här gjorde makarna Vignelli:
Posted by: Hall of Femmes 20:09
Categories: Fina saker, Lella Vignelli, Massimo Vignelli, Utställningar
Sunday 8 January 2012
Autografer
Wednesday 4 January 2012
”If Lella does not like it, it goes in the waste basket.”
Wednesday 21 December 2011
Lycka är…
Att få julkort från Massimo Vignelli och Ruth Ansel.
Wednesday 21 December 2011
”Sluta prata jobb!”
Wednesday 21 December 2011
Lella och Massimo Vignelli
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