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Title
It’s their Bodoni

Designer
Massimo Vignelli

Firm
Vignelli Associates

Year
1996

Client
Emigre Graphics

Medium
Flyer

Notes
In early 1990s U.S.A., Massimo Vignelli and Emigre typefoundry represented two opposed visions of design, the Modern and the Postmodern. In 1994 Vignelli strongly criticised Emigre’s work in Print magazine by judging it as an example of bad design. However, the article brought great popularity to Emigre, who later challenged Vignelli to design a direct-mail promotion for Filosofia, a sans-serif typeface that they had designed.

Vignelli demonstrated his great intelligence by making the poster stylistically consistent to his own visual vocabulary and by choosing a great slogan. In fact in 1987 he had released his own reinterpretation of Bodoni—the so called Our Bodoni—so the best slogan possible for what represented an opposed vision of typographical design to his own was “It’s their Bodoni” as to say “It’s not mine.”

Title
It’s their Bodoni

Designer
Massimo Vignelli

Firm
Vignelli Associates

Year
1996

Client
Emigre Graphics

Medium
Flyer

Notes
In early 1990s U.S.A., Massimo Vignelli and Emigre typefoundry represented two opposed visions of design, the Modern and the Postmodern. In 1994 Vignelli strongly criticised Emigre’s work in Print magazine by judging it as an example of bad design. However, the article brought great popularity to Emigre, who later challenged Vignelli to design a direct-mail promotion for Filosofia, a sans-serif typeface that they had designed.

Vignelli demonstrated his great intelligence by making the poster stylistically consistent to his own visual vocabulary and by choosing a great slogan. In fact in 1987 he had released his own reinterpretation of Bodoni—the so called Our Bodoni—so the best slogan possible for what represented an opposed vision of typographical design to his own was “It’s their Bodoni” as to say “It’s not mine.”