Through Discipline there is Detail

The following is a reflection.

Early on in his canon, Vignelli claims there are three aspects to design that are important to him: Semantic, Syntactic, Pragmatic. He spends a page or so explaining the three. Semantics is the why. Why are we making or creating this design. Syntactic is the way things are formed or created to give meaning. In the picture of the metro lines is a good example. The structure of the photo is the information being carried on from its purpose as a map. Pragmatics is confusing to me. I’m not quite sure what it means.

Without discipline there is no detail. Discipline allows us to focus in on detail. All we’re left with is the result of every detail from a creative process. Design is a discipline, a creative process with its own rules, adjusting the steadiness of its production toward its objective in the straight and most emotional way.

The tangibles, the things you control are the second part of the canon. Vignelli describes the use of grids, margins, columns, modules, and paper size. I think this brings it back to the idea of how discipline and the attention to detail are recognized on the previously mentioned tangible criteria.

Contrasting type sizes, font type, scale, texture, and color also are mentioned. What I found interesting was the font type and size. It’s funny how certain professors expect certain font for their assignments. Majority of the time if there is a required font, it’ll most likely be Times New Roman. Big font is used to express the emphasis of being loud about some word or words. It’s actually what is silent that matters most when everything is “loud”.