{"id":1850,"date":"2008-01-12T16:20:42","date_gmt":"2008-01-12T21:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/maps-and-legends\/"},"modified":"2008-01-12T16:16:58","modified_gmt":"2008-01-12T21:16:58","slug":"maps-and-legends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/maps-and-legends","title":{"rendered":"Maps and Legends"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite recent essays was about a subway map. The original version of it<\/a> was published at Design Observer in 2004, but the author expanded it for that book I keep mentioning all the goddamn time<\/a>, which I read last year. The great thing about the online version is that it has reader comments, including a neat exchange between the author and one of the 2Blowhards about visual poetry and the utility of design.<\/p>\n

Bierut’s essay was the first exposure I had to the work of Massimo Vignelli<\/a>. That is, it was the first time I’d read his name; it turns out I’ve seen his work all my life, in various corporate logos and other pieces of design: Bloomingdale’s, American Airlines, Bennetton, and others.<\/p>\n

This morning, taking a break from playing around with the iPhone (a.k.a. one of the finest pieces of design<\/a> I’ve ever seen), I caught up with New York Magazine<\/a>‘s issue on Design Revolutionaries, which I’ve been saving for a while (for some reason, the website refers to it as “Home Design”). It turned out that its feature on Vignelli and his wife Lella<\/a> was minuscule — Martha Stewart received a much longer piece<\/a> — but it did include a large replica of the (in)famous subway map, so that was nice to see.<\/p>\n

More importantly, its splash-photo shows that the Vignellis’ home on the upper east side is the greatest apartment I’ve ever seen in my life<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\"Vignellis<\/p>\n

(Photo by Dean Kaufman)<\/em><\/p>\n

Seriously: those windows are TWENTY FEET HIGH<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So, even though it’s not like he needs my money, I ordered a copy of Vignelli From A to Z<\/a> off Amazon today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite recent essays was about a subway map. The original version of it was published at Design Observer in 2004, but the author expanded it for that book I keep mentioning all the goddamn time, which I read last year. The great thing about the online version is that it has reader … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Maps and Legends”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25,46,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-design","category-urban-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-tQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12607,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-348-steven-heller","url_meta":{"origin":1850,"position":0},"title":"Episode 348 – Steven Heller","author":"Gil","date":"November 3, 2019","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 348: Steven Heller \"It's a learning moment of how powerful symbols are and how powerful graphic design is.\" The Nazi swastika is a symbol of evil, but what about the pre-Nazi version of that symbol? 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