#designertodesigner

[vignellicenter]

Designer to Designer

The first Friday of every month the National Archives throws an #ArchivesHashtagParty. This month the theme is #ArchivesPenPals.

The archives has many examples of the Massimo and Lella Vignellis’ correspondence with other designers. Here is a short note from designer and illustrator Milton Glaser who invited Massimo to talk to his class. 

“Dear Massimo,

Thanks for coming to class. The students were thrilled as was I. Let’s continue the argument.″

Although we don’t have any other details about what transpired, we are very intrigued about what the argument was.

See other examples of correspondence from the archives:   https://vignellicenter.tumblr.com/search/correspondence

Correspondence from Milton Glaser to Massimo Vignelli Massimo and Lella Vignelli Papers Vignelli Center for Design Studies Rochester, New York

[vignellicenter]

Sometimes in the Vignelli archives we find work by other designers. 

Like this 1991 letter from Saul Bass asking Massimo Vignelli to do an interview for a future book about Saul himself. 

It was to be part of the "Masters of American Design" series published by Harry Abrams. Previous volumes were done on Frederic Goudy and Alexy Brodovitch. 

Although it seems the book never was published, this letterhead features a self portrait of Mr. Bass as a bass fish! 

See some examples of Saul Bass' design work from the Graphic Design Archives at the RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection at Rochester Institute of Technology: https://library.rit.edu/gda/designers/saul-bass

Correspondence from Saul Bass to Massimo Vignelli, 1991 8.5” x 11” Massimo and Lella Vignelli papers Vignelli Center for Design Studies Rochester, New York