World-renowned designer Massimo Vignelli once said, “Out of thousands of typefaces, all we need are a few basic ones, and trash the rest”.

Some of Vignelli’s work:
– Corporate identity for American Airlines
– Graphics for United States National Park Service
– The subway map for the MTA New York City Transit Authority

Today we’ll explore the 6 classic typefaces that Vignelli believes are all that you’ll ever need for any project, ever.

Why Is Typography Important in Graphic Design (blog post): https://bit.ly/3pnTHWD

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
1:17 Garamond
1:58 Bodoni
3:00 Century Expanded
3:40 Futura
4:56 Times Roman
5:40 Helvetica

–
Learn how to build custom websites with Webflow FAST:
https://bit.ly/WebflowWebclass2020
–
Find me on other social media platforms:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ransegall/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ransegall
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ran-segal…
–
Gear & Book Recommendations: http://bit.ly/2ohFOuj

#webdesign #typography #graphicdesign #helvetica #futura

Thanks for watching the video!

source

27 Comments

  3. Great to know video, I plan to add them to my collection, it's not the kind of fonts I use thou coz I am more into modern fonts, but the Garamond and Bodoni fonts were an eye-opener for me.

  12. Times New Roman is so overused by non-designers and like you said a ā€œdefault fontā€ for a lot of programs, so I canā€™t bring myself to use it. The 2 examples you said were not Helvetica appeared to be forms Helvetica Condensed, but not sure on that one. Iā€™m not sure if the Red Bull logo was Futura though – Iā€™ll have to take a closer look at that one.

  15. There are a lot of fonts that just look almost exactly like some other font, so yeah, we don't really need them. I think making a new font is what designers do when they're looking for their next job—like whitling a stick or something, to pass the time.

  18. I love the existence of tens of millions fonts. I disagree with the backlash by stuffy old narrow minded designers no matter how successful they were. Thatā€™s kinda like saying you can only use acoustic piano, Rhodes and Wurlitzer sounds on keyboards. Variety is the spice of life, please take your rules and break them!

  23. That's some basic shit, right there.

    Futura is the only one on that list I still use. Otherwise, I'll create my own or look for whatever fits the current project from the output of the myriad designers out there who are way more talented than Granpa Vignelli.

  24. I think the point here isn't so much "NEVER use any fonts but these 6" but more an encouragement to designers who may be creatively paralyzed by the thousands of choices out there, as if to say "with a little discipline, look at the amazing variety of looks that can be achieved with only these 6 great faces!" Limited choices can be an incredible accelerant of creativity.

  26. So … for typesetting technical documentation, why have I settled on none of these, but Myriad? Not because it comes free with Illustrator. But because it has a huge character set (great for typesetting in different languages), four widths and four weights, is space-saving and more readable at small sizes than Helvetica. Anyway the overview misses at least one "Frutiger-style" sans serif. Why? Helvetica is problematic in difficult reading conditions with its closed shapes. All the different numerals forming more or less an oval. That "e" making almost a circle. Letters with very small openings. All those things making it less than ideal when it comes to readability in less than ideal reading conditions. In addition Helvetica was drawn at a time before systematic typefaces with many different widths were a thing. So it's a bit unsystematic. If it has to be "that sort of typeface" and I'm not trying to recreate a Helvetica, I'd always use Univers for its clean, cooler look …

Leave A Reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here