Big Think Interview With Massimo Vignelli
In 1965, Vignelli became co-founder and design director of Unimark International Corporation. With Lella Vignelli, he established the offices of Vignelli Associates in 1971, and Vignelli Designs in 1978. His work includes graphic and corporate identity programs, publication designs, architectural graphics, and exhibition, interior, furniture, and consumer product designs for many leading American and European companies and institutions.
Vignelli has had his work published and exhibited throughout the world and entered in the permanent collections of several museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum. He is a past president of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGl) and the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AlGA), a vice president of the Architectural League, and a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). His many awards and honors include the AIGA Gold Medal, the Presidential Design Award, and the National Arts Club Gold Medal for Design.
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Massimo Vignelli: My name is Massimo Vignelli and I like to\r\nbe known as a designer.
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nQuestion: How did you choose design as a career?
\r\n\r\nMassimo Vignelli: \r\nYes. I started to begin to\r\nbe interested in architecture and design when I was 14 years old, which was\r\npretty early in life. And then I\r\nwould start to look at architectural magazines and I eventually went to the\r\nschool of architecture too, but one of the things I learned very early is that\r\nan architect should be able to design anything from a spoon to the city. That was a favorite phrase by Argo Flores, a Viennese architect around the turn of the century, the other\r\ncentury. And I was fascinated by\r\nthat idea and then I’ve seen that that is true and the great architects like\r\nFlores and Hoffmann from Vienna, again were doing this kind of things. And since I was born and raised in\r\nMilan, architects in Milan, they were also doing all kinds of things. They were designing buildings and\r\nfurniture and interiors and exhibitions and so on.
\r\n\r\nThen I shared an apartment with Max Huber, a famous graphic\r\ndesigner from Switzerland, and so I learned graphic design and I got fully in\r\nlove with graphic design. And so I\r\nwas doing the whole thing from graphics to architecture.
\r\n\r\nSo I built a house at one point for a client and then I did\r\nexhibitions and then I started to do products and you know, that's the way I\r\nstarted. And I like to try all the\r\ntime to try different materials, different experiences, I was eager to try all\r\nkinds of things and I suppose that attitude has a left me after a long, long\r\nlife of design anyhow. So that's\r\nhow I got interested in architecture and design. And naturally since I was very curious about the protagonist\r\nof the Modern movement in Europe at the time by the time I got to the\r\nUniversity of Architecture I was about 20 years old, I had already met cursory\r\nall the major architects in Europe from Le Corbusier, to you name it, all the others, country by\r\ncountry, which was very exciting. \r\nYou know, I was a kind of a groupie I would say.
\r\n\r\nAnd of course, I was reading all of the books of them and\r\nabout what they had to say, and that gave me the critical strength or the\r\ncritical background to approach architecture and design.
\r\n\r\nQuestion: How much of your work takes place on, and off, the\r\ncomputer?
\r\n\r\nThen, there was a lot of glue, a lot of other materials, you\r\nknow, pasting up and specifying type and losing type and was a very long and\r\ntedious process, Photostat machines and paste up again. Oh god, what a life. I spend two-thirds of my life on nothing,\r\nin a sense.
\r\n\r\nThen all of a sudden God sent this incredible thing, which\r\nis the computer, that’s the – it’s like God sending Jesus Christ, it’s that\r\nkind of a thing. I don’t believe\r\nin one or the other, but I can believe in the computer. And so that was the great\r\nredeemer. So throw away all other\r\nkinds of tools and all of a sudden you could do things that were taking a long\r\ntime to do, all of a sudden you can do it and you can see while you’re doing\r\nit. So that is a very, very, very\r\nexciting thing. Not only that, but\r\nyou could do things better than ever in history. You can also do things worse than in history, all the\r\ntime. Most people do worse things\r\nthan ever. But good guys then make\r\nbetter things than ever. And so\r\nthat is a great tool to work. And\r\nthis is what we use all the time.
\r\n\r\nNow, since I’m medieval, as you can see, then I still use my\r\npencil, and I use the computer mostly for email and writing and things like\r\nthat, and Googling, and blah, blah, blah, and checking the words, as you can\r\nimagine. Not being my first\r\nlanguage, I have to check spelling all the time. And then I have people working with me which are very\r\nliterate in the computer and so I can work behind them and say a little bigger,\r\na little smaller, yeah, like this, yeah this is good, this is better. Yeah, try this, try that. It’s that kind of operation, which is\r\nvery funny in a sense. You cannot\r\nplay the piano by telling a pianist what to do, go a little more to the left or\r\nto the right. And the same is for\r\nthe computer, really. You have to\r\nplay yourself to get the most out of it. \r\nBut you know, and it takes a long time to learn too. So, I don’t think I have the time in my\r\nhead to really use it in a good way.
\r\n\r\nQuestion: Is there anything the computer can’t do for a\r\ndesigner?
\r\n\r\nMassimo Vignelli: Yeah, the computer is really like a\r\npencil, you know. It used to\r\nbe. The pencil can do anything you\r\nwant to, but you have to do it, and the same is with the computer. It can do\r\nanything you want, but you have to do it. \r\nIt’s a tool. And when it\r\ngoes by itself, it’s a disaster because it’s a very seductive kind of\r\ntool. The pencil you leave it\r\nthere, and it’s dead. It doesn’t\r\ndo anything and it doesn’t move by itself. It doesn’t offer anything; it’s totally submissive to\r\nyou. The computer needs...even by\r\naccident, offers incredible beautiful things that are very seductive. And if you forget about, or if you\r\ndon’t have an idea to begin with, it is very easy to be seduced and that is not\r\na good use of the computer. You\r\nknow? So, that is the way it goes.
\r\n\r\nQuestion: What makes a design work?
\r\n\r\nMassimo Vignelli: Well, it should be visually powerful in\r\nthe sense that I do not like design that is a flat tire, that has no tension,\r\nthat has no guts, that has no expression. \r\nThis doesn’t mean to be **** like this, it could be on the contrary,\r\nextremely elegant. And by that I\r\nmean, intellectually elegant. Not\r\nfashion elegant, not mores elegant, but intellectually elegant. That means a mind that has been\r\ncultivated and refined for quite a long time, you know. Reading the best kind of books and\r\nreally understanding how the mind can be sublime. And another way intellectual elegance is exactly the\r\nopposite of intellectually vulgar, you know. And indeed, we are surrounded by a tremendous amount\r\nof vulgarity, therefore, it is a strive to – it is an effort to change that\r\nkind of situation, but it is very exciting because you have a sense of\r\naccomplishment. You know. And of course, you like to talk about\r\nit, you like to convince people and tell people how to get away from vulgar\r\nsituations into something which is a little more elegant, a little more\r\nrefined. And if you multiply,\r\nmultiply, multiply, then the world is beginning to get better. It takes you a long time.
\r\n\r\nThen the third thing is, people are fascinated with\r\ntrends. You know, trends are in\r\nthe air, everybody likes to be trendy, to be up-to-date, you know. But what is up-to-date today is gone\r\ntomorrow. And if you are a\r\nresponsible kind of a designer, you cannot design things that tomorrow are no\r\ngood anymore. If you like cheating\r\nwith your client and your public where you use it, whatever it might be. So, you like to design something that\r\nis going to last a long time. And\r\nso, you train yourself to be disciplined and you train yourself to stay away\r\nfrom trends. And in a sense you\r\nget automatically involving into the notion of timelessness, so it takes to\r\nlast a long time. And my god, I\r\ncan quote so many things. Let’s\r\nsay American Airlines logo I’ve done. \r\nLook how many have been done since I done that one. I done that one 45 years ago, maybe\r\neven 50 years ago, and it’s still there. \r\nIt’s the only one that’s never changed. And how you can change? How can you make it better? It’s very legible, there are no tricks, it’s half red, half\r\nblue. What is more American than\r\nthat? You give me one and I’ll\r\ntake a look. You know, the type is\r\na type that will last forever. And\r\nit’s fine.
\r\n\r\nThere are so many, the Bloomingdale logo, or the New York\r\nSubway, or you know, I mean, plenty, plenty, plenty of things which are – and\r\nobjects that we have done, plates like the Heller plates. You know, generation after generation\r\ngrew up by eating on those plates and they are still around today. Furniture that we have designed a long\r\ntime ago are still there, and so on. \r\nSo, it is great to design things that stay a long time. They have a long staying power. And when you look at the antiques, one,\r\nthey have staying power. So, I\r\nkind of like the idea of designing things that in 100 years from now will be\r\nlooked at with respect and not laughed about, in a sense.
\r\n\r\nQuestion: What aspects of contemporary design do you\r\ndislike?
\r\n\r\nMassimo Vignelli: Well, vulgarity is a real ubiquitous\r\nthing. You know, vulgarities on\r\neverything. On clothing today more\r\nthan ever is on printed matter, kind of toonish kind of things, balloons, even\r\nthe subway map has all those balloons. \r\nI mean, that’s very low, literally. **** there’s no need. \r\nYou don't talk down to people, you talk up to people, you know. So instead most of the people -- most\r\nof the manufacturers they tend to design things to sell they are more\r\ninterested in the money side than anything else. And greed is really the religion of vulgarity. And it's that is that kind of greedy\r\nyou know that everybody seems to have. \r\nI mean, as part of the culture, more here than any other place to a certain\r\nextent. Maybe because it offers\r\nmore, maybe because there's more buying power in the people, who knows? I don't know why. But certainly is -- and you know why\r\nelse because it's a very young country and hasn't had the time to sift what is\r\ngood from what is bad. But like\r\neverything that is young it's fascinating.
\r\n\r\nQuestion: How did you create your iconic 1970s New York City\r\nsubway map?
\r\n\r\nMassimo Vignelli: Well, number one, we like to design things\r\nwhich we have done before. So we\r\nhave a challenge to make it better. \r\nThe other thing, all the maps which were done at the time before our map\r\nwere **** to a certain extent, but we’re talking a different – they were trying\r\nto be half geographic, half schematic, and so on, not a very clear idea. And so we started to took a precise\r\nvery diagrammatic kind of an approach, a diagram based on a grade of 90 and 45\r\ndegrees, like the London map which was very 1931. You know, a long time ago. And we just did it. \r\nEvery line had a color at the time, every station had a dot, no dot, no\r\nstation, it’s very simple. But\r\nvery simple however is a process of insisting, insisting, insisting until you\r\nget just the essentials. And all the\r\ntrashy things are gone. And that\r\nis a process that is typical of our modes operandi, I mean what we do all that\r\ntime sifting, sifting. Actually,\r\nI’m not a designer, I’m a sifter. \r\nI can sift everything, all the time. My sift level lines keep shaking all the time for everything\r\nthat is around. And so that is the\r\nway the – then in 1979, they changed their nomenclatures, so the map that we\r\nhad then was no good anymore for use. \r\nAnd so recently we redesigned the map according to the new\r\nnomenclatures, so that’s what we have done and it’s kind of nice. There’s so many museums I can’t believe\r\nit. And I hope we will do\r\nsomething with it soon. It’s a\r\ngood map.
\r\n\r\nBut most of the maps today, they are done this way, subway\r\nmaps I mean, around the world. \r\nParis has done a new one like this some time ago. Berlin, you name it, every major city\r\nuses diagrammatic map. It’s only\r\nNew York, which is kind of special, it still has this sort of a hybrid between\r\na map and a diagram, but not even a diagram and, not even a map, but however,\r\nthe problem with the existing map is too much information it is 5 pounds into a\r\n1 pound bag. And no wonder it\r\nbreaks.
\r\n\r\nQuestion: What other New York City signage have you created?\r\n
\r\n\r\nMassimo Vignelli: Well, I mean we designed the signs for the\r\nhistorical district, the historical streets you know. And why we did that, you see again, you have to be aware of\r\nwhat is around. For instance, we\r\ncould have done a completely new and different sign, but that would have been\r\nstupid. As a matter of fact\r\nsomebody else did that kind of thing and I consider it a very stupid approach\r\nbecause then when it does it is who it adds to an already very busy\r\nclutter. So instead we took the\r\nexisting signs and just change the color. \r\nYou know, so it's not so expensive that way, but also doesn't add\r\nanother layer to the already very busy urban clutter you know. So the problem of clutter is a big one\r\nof course as a designer and sifting, sifting, we tried to sift out as much as\r\npossible. And that kind of stuff.
\r\n\r\nQuestion: When you walk around New York, or the world, do\r\nyou feel like you’ve designed the place?
\r\n\r\nMassimo Vignelli: Yeah. You know, you have to know that, like every good designer,\r\nyou’ll have a twin brother that is called ego. And I go around with my ego all the time. And you should see how happy he is when\r\nhe goes around in a most far away kind of place and all of a sudden maybe a\r\ntruck that comes by with a logo that you have designed, or a book is on the\r\nwindow of a store, or someplace has the furniture that you have designed, or\r\nthe airline that brings you there has that. So, it’s kind of funny. Yes, it is a lot of fun.
\r\n\r\nWhile it is a gratification, it’s a lifelong\r\ngratification. But as I said, it’s\r\nfrom my ego; to keep my ego happy. \r\nIf the ego is not happy, you are in deep trouble, you know that?
\r\n\r\nQuestion: Why have you argued against the proliferation of\r\nnew fonts?
\r\n\r\nMassimo Vignelli: Well you know, you have to know a little\r\nbit more about the history of typography, or type, and how it came about. You know, it was invented at the end of\r\nthe 1400’s, you know, the Guttenbergs, so to speak, and then for 200 or 300\r\nyears, it went with very few different type faces. You know, very elegant, and that’s it. Some publisher had\r\nthe type and printer and publisher was all one thing. And there were very few also because it was very difficult\r\nto cut type, you know, it was cut by hand and not tools besides the chisels, so\r\nto speak, and the type was this small, so it was a very refined kind of\r\noperation to do. And because it\r\nwas refined, it was quite elegant. There was no room for vulgarity to get into\r\nit. So, the basic typefaces done\r\nin those years like Garamond, like Baskerville and **** and so on, ****. They were quite elegant – very elegant,\r\nactually, typefaces.
\r\n\r\nThen the Industrial Revolution comes about and then you can\r\ndo the type in an industrial way and with the help of machines, and so on and\r\nso forth. And then because you could do it, people start to do it. The foundry started to do more type and\r\ntherefore they had to sell it, to offer it. And they found the right victim in the advertising people,\r\nwhich they thought that they should use a different typeface for every\r\ndifferent client. They should not\r\nhave two clients with the same type. \r\nGod. And so that went on\r\nand on and that became a business just wallpapers, you know, it became a\r\nbusiness to make typefaces. And\r\nthen because of that, you’ve got typeface designers, people who got into the\r\nbusiness, they like it and the create nonsense type, things that were totally\r\nuseless and things of that nature and on and on and on and on.
\r\n\r\nAnd so eventually, you understand, that the reason that\r\nthere are a lot of typefaces is just because there’s a business, not a\r\nneed. So, you begin to sift, sift,\r\nsift, sift, and you begin sifting to see which one are appropriate for one use\r\nor another and basically, as you know, the typefaces are divided into two\r\ncategories, which are called serif, the one with the feet, and sans serif\r\nwithout the feet, the straight one. \r\nAnd between one family and the other family you begin to pick out the\r\nbest, and at the end when you pick out the best, you wind up with about a half\r\na dozen, or a little more of typefaces. \r\nAnd those are good, those are good for everything. Each one of those families are very\r\nlarge, you know, so they are of the same typeface you have are very thin or\r\nvery big, they are straight or italic, which inclined, and things like\r\nthat. So yes, there are only a\r\ngood maybe a dozen. I’m very\r\ngenerous today since I think they – but there’s no more than a dozen, actually\r\nI don’t use much many more than three or four in my life. That is the thing.
\r\n\r\nHowever, exceptionally sometime I might use some other\r\ntoo. But not really much more than\r\nthat a dozen of good typefaces and the rest you can really trash it from a\r\ndesign point of view. However,\r\nit’s a business that keeps a lot of people alive and what do you want to do,\r\nwhat would they do otherwise? So,\r\nlet them do type if they like it. \r\nThe only thing that is important to understand is when to use it and\r\nwhen not to use it, or what to use. \r\nAnd a good designer can come to it, you know. And they can really very well along with a few\r\ntypefaces. Every good designer\r\ndoesn’t use more than a few typefaces and when they’re less good, the number\r\nincrease. And if they’re worse,\r\nthen use all of them.
\r\n\r\nQuestion: Having starred in the documentary “Helvetica,”\r\nwere you surprised by its success?
\r\n\r\nMassimo Vignelli: Yeah, definitely, I was surprised and\r\nvery, very, very pleased too. But\r\nit’s incredible by how many people really liked the movie. People that had nothing to do with\r\ndesign, and how useful it has been. \r\nYou have no idea the amount of people that mentioned this movie to me,\r\neverywhere in the world. I got\r\nemail from everywhere in the world talking about it. I don’t say many things.
\r\n\r\nIn the disc, if you get the disc, at the end there are\r\nextras, which are better then the whole movie, really. It was terrific. So, if you get the disc is fun. Any how, what is clear you see,\r\nHelvetica was born in 1957, around that time, you know, 1955, for the very precise\r\nreason I remember, before Helvetica, I was using similar typefaces and cutting\r\ntogether close, because we like the type to be closed. But typefaces, they came with shoulders\r\nat that time, and the great invention of Helvetica was to be make the shoulder\r\nvery, very tight so you could put the type – and it’s the only type that had\r\nthat, that’s why.
\r\n\r\nWhen we had that type that we could do that; that was B.C.,\r\nBefore Computer. Now with\r\ncomputer, you can even do that. You can do anything. But at the time, it had to be done by cutting. And so I lost a lot of type ****, a lot\r\nof letters by cutting and gluing and so on. But when Helvetica came about, that could be done fine and\r\nthat is why it was so successful. \r\nAnd I started to use it and use it and the more you use it the more you\r\nlearn how to use it, it’s just like a piano, the more you play it, the more you\r\nlearn how to play it and the better player you become. And so it is with the type. And it is a great typeface, it will\r\nlast forever. You know, there are\r\nothers, some people like other variations of it. I’m happy with it. \r\nAnd I think it will last hundreds of years, you know. And there are people will write with\r\nthis. Along with the **** along\r\nwith the Garamond, along with the few of the great classic typefaces. And that’s it, until we **** those\r\nfaces will be around, I guess.
\r\n\r\nQuestion: What is the distinction you make between dimension\r\nand scale?
\r\n\r\nMassimo Vignelli: Dimension is a measurable thing, entity,\r\nyou know that long, six inches, 10 inches, 10 feet, whatever it might be. Scale is a mental – you can say that a\r\nlounger has scale, a building has scale, or an object has scale, or a page, or\r\nwhatever if it’s just right. A\r\nscale is a relationship to the object and the space surrounding it. And that dialogue could be music, or it\r\ncould be just noise. And that is\r\nwhy it is so important, the sense of scale. And the scale relates to everything. The thickness of a pipe, the thickness\r\nof a leg of the furniture. Even\r\ncolor could have a scale. Let’s\r\nsay that if you paint a building shocking pink, that has no scale, it is just a\r\nhuge mistake, but it’s not in the scale of the city to have things like\r\nthat. You know. So, not only\r\nbecause it’s not appropriate, not only because it’s offensive to the\r\nenvironment, I mean but among them also because that quantity of that color in\r\nthe urban scale, is out of scale.
\r\n\r\nBut however, out of scale is also very fascinating\r\nthing. One of the greatest\r\ninventions of pop art was really to bring an object which was usually like this\r\nto make it huge. Oldenburg was\r\nreally the great artist that did the best with that notion, you know. I mean we need also, **** we made a\r\nline of cosmetics in the shape of nuts and bolts and screws and things like\r\nthat by just taking a real thing and making it big. The change in scale is a surprise sometimes that could be\r\nused in a good way, but again, you have to measure it and it should be\r\nappropriate. Appropriateness is\r\nnot a very important issue, you know, the notion of appropriateness. That means to design things which are\r\nright for that destination, and not for another one. And so when we start, we always look for what is specific\r\nfor that particular problem so that we can design in a most appropriate way as\r\nmuch as we can understand it, of course. \r\nBut appropriateness is important, discipline is important, and ambiguity\r\nis important.
\r\n\r\nAmbiguity is not – ambiguity for us Italians is a positive\r\nthing. For the Anglo-Saxon it is a\r\nnegative thing. You know. It’s a different culture. You know, you come up with a Vatican in\r\nyour pocket, ambiguity becomes very natural. But for us, ambiguity is plurality of meanings and that is\r\nwhy it is exciting. In the\r\nAnglo-Saxon dictionary, so to speak, ambiguity instead has a negative connotation\r\nin the sense that ambiguity’s mellifluous, something that is neither here or\r\nthere. And for us instead **** is\r\na way of living. But it’s\r\nimportant in design too because then it gives another level of richness so\r\nthat, yes, it is that thing and if you read it in a slightly different way,\r\nmaybe it is something else too. \r\nAnd that might be – but it’s very, very dangerous as well. So, one has to train – it’s not for\r\neverybody.
\r\n\r\nQuestion: Are we currently in “postmodernism,”\r\n“post-postmodernism,” or “neo-modernism”?
\r\n\r\nMassimo Vignelli: I tell you, one of the greatest things\r\nabout postmodernism is that it’s gone. \r\nYou know. Postmodernism was\r\nthe 15 minutes of celebrity for those that would have never had it\r\notherwise. You know. When you think of Modernism as\r\nincredibly alive and just rooted in hundreds of years – in a sense, I think\r\nModernism started during the Renaissance somehow. But really, the Modernism is more, really started, I would\r\nsay, with the Enlightenment, you know, the Enlightenment, you know, 1750,\r\n1770s, 1750, you know, around that time. \r\nAlong with the Didierot and d'Alambert in a sense, with industrialization, basically the\r\nfirst sounds of industrialization. \r\nAnd Modernism is alive and well and a great – while postmodernist is\r\ngone, it has only one very good thing with it, is that somehow you restore\r\ninterest in history. And that is\r\nvery important. History, theory,\r\nand criticism are the most important aspects in the development of design. But Modernism is alive and well, as I\r\nsay, and a lot of the young people are now working along the Modernist\r\nway. And there is no more\r\npost-modernism around, it’s really gone, gone, gone, gone, thank God.
\r\n\r\nBut, of course, it’s not a style. What is in style is a bad thing. Modernism is an attitude, it’s not a style. Modernism is a discipline, not a\r\nstyle. Modernism is intelligent,\r\nnot a style. And so, when you work\r\nalong those lines, you are a Modernist designer, and that is what is good about\r\nit.
\r\n\r\nSo that will last forever, by the way.
\r\n\r\nQuestion: What was Le Corbusier like?
\r\n\r\nMassimo Vignelli: Well, we were lucky enough to meet all the\r\ngreat masters of architecture and design from Le Corbusier to Mies van der\r\nRohe, from Alvar Aalto to Charles Eames, and it is nice to know them. And if you aren’t stupid, they like you\r\ntoo. And parties, you know. Anyhow, Le Corbusier was well, was God\r\nat the time, you could imagine. I\r\nremember one time, we were traveling from Milan to Venice on a train, he was\r\ngoing to give a lecture in Venice, and he was traveling with a friend of mine, an\r\narchitect friend, a very important architect at the time, and so, I could\r\nresist, I went to the same compartment where they were, you known, and I was\r\ndoing an architectural magazine at the time, so just like you, I was very\r\ninterested in interviewing the great master, you know. And I remember at one point he said, when\r\nI was sitting next to Le Corbusier, and he said, “Wow, this young man has a lot\r\nof heat.” It was summer. Maybe we were tight together, but he\r\nmeant it as a kind of a – well, it was fun. And I have stories about every one of those big\r\nmasters.
\r\n\r\nOne night we had dinner, we had several dinners in Chicago\r\nwith Mies van der Rohe because I was teaching at the Institute of Design in\r\nChicago. And again, very exciting\r\nstories, I mean, he was a great storyteller, he would tell stories over the\r\nBarcelona Pavilion, how it came about and all the things that happened during\r\nthe construction and a thousand of antidotes from every one of them. And it was fun. So, you know, as I say, I was a\r\ngroupie, so this is why I am never annoyed when wherever I go to give lectures\r\nand I see youngsters coming around, you know they want a signature. And I understand that, I mean, I was\r\ndoing the same thing. So, it’s\r\nfine. I am not annoyed by that at\r\nall. And I’m glad actually, I’m\r\nglad they have some examples, somebody in their mind that is, you know is a\r\nmentor. I mean, at the end of the\r\nday, that is the most gratifying thing.
\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAn interview with the modernist designer and founder of Vignelli Associates.
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Smartly dressed: Researchers develop clothes that sense movement via touch
Measuring a person's movements and poses, smart clothes could be used for athletic training, rehabilitation, or health-monitoring.
In recent years there have been exciting breakthroughs in wearable technologies, like smartwatches that can monitor your breathing and blood oxygen levels.
But what about a wearable that can detect how you move as you do a physical activity or play a sport, and could potentially even offer feedback on how to improve your technique?
And, as a major bonus, what if the wearable were something you'd actually already be wearing, like a shirt of a pair of socks?
That's the idea behind a new set of MIT-designed clothing that use special fibers to sense a person's movement via touch. Among other things, the researchers showed that their clothes can actually determine things like if someone is sitting, walking, or doing particular poses.
The group from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) says that their clothes could be used for athletic training and rehabilitation. With patients' permission, they could even help passively monitor the health of residents in assisted-care facilities and determine if, for example, someone has fallen or is unconscious.
The researchers have developed a range of prototypes, from socks and gloves to a full vest. The team's "tactile electronics" use a mix of more typical textile fibers alongside a small amount of custom-made functional fibers that sense pressure from the person wearing the garment.
According to CSAIL graduate student Yiyue Luo, a key advantage of the team's design is that, unlike many existing wearable electronics, theirs can be incorporated into traditional large-scale clothing production. The machine-knitted tactile textiles are soft, stretchable, breathable, and can take a wide range of forms.
"Traditionally it's been hard to develop a mass-production wearable that provides high-accuracy data across a large number of sensors," says Luo, lead author on a new paper about the project that is appearing in this month's edition of Nature Electronics. "When you manufacture lots of sensor arrays, some of them will not work and some of them will work worse than others, so we developed a self-correcting mechanism that uses a self-supervised machine learning algorithm to recognize and adjust when certain sensors in the design are off-base."
The team's clothes have a range of capabilities. Their socks predict motion by looking at how different sequences of tactile footprints correlate to different poses as the user transitions from one pose to another. The full-sized vest can also detect the wearers' pose, activity, and the texture of the contacted surfaces.
The authors imagine a coach using the sensor to analyze people's postures and give suggestions on improvement. It could also be used by an experienced athlete to record their posture so that beginners can learn from them. In the long term, they even imagine that robots could be trained to learn how to do different activities using data from the wearables.
"Imagine robots that are no longer tactilely blind, and that have 'skins' that can provide tactile sensing just like we have as humans," says corresponding author Wan Shou, a postdoc at CSAIL. "Clothing with high-resolution tactile sensing opens up a lot of exciting new application areas for researchers to explore in the years to come."
The paper was co-written by MIT professors Antonio Torralba, Wojciech Matusik, and Tomás Palacios, alongside PhD students Yunzhu Li, Pratyusha Sharma, and Beichen Li; postdoc Kui Wu; and research engineer Michael Foshey.
The work was partially funded by Toyota Research Institute.
Reprinted with permission of MIT News. Read the original article.
Do you worry too much? Stoicism can help
How imagining the worst case scenario can help calm anxiety.
- Stoicism is the philosophy that nothing about the world is good or bad in itself, and that we have control over both our judgments and our reactions to things.
- It is hardest to control our reactions to the things that come unexpectedly.
- By meditating every day on the "worst case scenario," we can take the sting out of the worst that life can throw our way.
Are you a worrier? Do you imagine nightmare scenarios and then get worked up and anxious about them? Does your mind get caught in a horrible spiral of catastrophizing over even the smallest of things? Worrying, particularly imagining the worst case scenario, seems to be a natural part of being human and comes easily to a lot of us. It's awful, perhaps even dangerous, when we do it.
But, there might just be an ancient wisdom that can help. It involves reframing this attitude for the better, and it comes from Stoicism. It's called "premeditation," and it could be the most useful trick we can learn.
Practical Stoicism
Broadly speaking, Stoicism is the philosophy of choosing your judgments. Stoics believe that there is nothing about the universe that can be called good or bad, valuable or valueless, in itself. It's we who add these values to things. As Shakespeare's Hamlet says, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Our minds color the things we encounter as being "good" or "bad," and given that we control our minds, we therefore have control over all of our negative feelings.
Put another way, Stoicism maintains that there's a gap between our experience of an event and our judgment of it. For instance, if someone calls you a smelly goat, you have an opportunity, however small and hard it might be, to pause and ask yourself, "How will I judge this?" What's more, you can even ask, "How will I respond?" We have power over which thoughts we entertain and the final say on our actions. Today, Stoicism has influenced and finds modern expression in the hugely effective "cognitive behavioral therapy."
Helping you practice StoicismCredit: Robyn Beck via Getty Images
One of the principal fathers of ancient Stoicism was the Roman statesmen, Seneca, who argued that the unexpected and unforeseen blows of life are the hardest to take control over. The shock of a misfortune can strip away the power we have to choose our reaction. For instance, being burglarized feels so horrible because we had felt so safe at home. A stomach ache, out of the blue, is harder than a stitch thirty minutes into a run. A sudden bang makes us jump, but a firework makes us smile. Fell swoops hurt more than known hardships.
What could possibly go wrong?
So, how can we resolve this? Seneca suggests a Stoic technique called "premeditatio malorum" or "premeditation." At the start of every day, we ought to take time to indulge our anxious and catastrophizing mind. We should "rehearse in the mind: exile, torture, war, shipwreck." We should meditate on the worst things that could happen: your partner will leave you, your boss will fire you, your house will burn down. Maybe, even, you'll die.
This might sound depressing, but the important thing is that we do not stop there.
Stoicism has influenced and finds modern expression in the hugely effective "cognitive behavioral therapy."
The Stoic also rehearses how they will react to these things as they come up. For instance, another Stoic (and Roman Emperor) Marcus Aurelius asks us to imagine all the mean, rude, selfish, and boorish people we'll come across today. Then, in our heads, we script how we'll respond when we meet them. We can shrug off their meanness, smile at their rudeness, and refuse to be "implicated in what is degrading." Thus prepared, we take control again of our reactions and behavior.
The Stoics cast themselves into the darkest and most desperate of conditions but then realize that they can and will endure. With premeditation, the Stoic is prepared and has the mental vigor necessary to take the blow on the chin and say, "Yep, l can deal with this."
Catastrophizing as a method of mental inoculation
Seneca wrote: "In times of peace, the soldier carries out maneuvers." This is also true of premeditation, which acts as the war room or training ground. The agonizing cut of the unexpected is blunted by preparedness. We can prepare the mind for whatever trials may come, in just the same way we can prepare the body for some endurance activity. The world can throw nothing as bad as that which our minds have already imagined.
Stoicism teaches us to embrace our worrying mind but to embrace it as a kind of inoculation. With a frown over breakfast, try to spend five minutes of your day deliberately catastrophizing. Get your anti-anxiety battle plan ready and then face the world.
Jonny Thomson teaches philosophy in Oxford. He runs a popular Instagram account called Mini Philosophy (@philosophyminis). His first book is Mini Philosophy: A Small Book of Big Ideas.
U.S. Navy controls inventions that claim to change "fabric of reality"
Inventions with revolutionary potential made by a mysterious aerospace engineer for the U.S. Navy come to light.
- U.S. Navy holds patents for enigmatic inventions by aerospace engineer Dr. Salvatore Pais.
- Pais came up with technology that can "engineer" reality, devising an ultrafast craft, a fusion reactor, and more.
- While mostly theoretical at this point, the inventions could transform energy, space, and military sectors.
The U.S. Navy controls patents for some futuristic and outlandish technologies, some of which, dubbed "the UFO patents," came to life recently. Of particular note are inventions by the somewhat mysterious Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais, whose tech claims to be able to "engineer reality." His slate of highly-ambitious, borderline sci-fi designs meant for use by the U.S. government range from gravitational wave generators and compact fusion reactors to next-gen hybrid aerospace-underwater crafts with revolutionary propulsion systems, and beyond.
Of course, the existence of patents does not mean these technologies have actually been created, but there is evidence that some demonstrations of operability have been successfully carried out. As investigated and reported by The War Zone, a possible reason why some of the patents may have been taken on by the Navy is that the Chinese military may also be developing similar advanced gadgets.
Among Dr. Pais's patents are designs, approved in 2018, for an aerospace-underwater craft of incredible speed and maneuverability. This cone-shaped vehicle can potentially fly just as well anywhere it may be, whether air, water or space, without leaving any heat signatures. It can achieve this by creating a quantum vacuum around itself with a very dense polarized energy field. This vacuum would allow it to repel any molecule the craft comes in contact with, no matter the medium. Manipulating "quantum field fluctuations in the local vacuum energy state," would help reduce the craft's inertia. The polarized vacuum would dramatically decrease any elemental resistance and lead to "extreme speeds," claims the paper.
Not only that, if the vacuum-creating technology can be engineered, we'd also be able to "engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level," states the patent. This would lead to major advancements in aerospace propulsion and generating power. Not to mention other reality-changing outcomes that come to mind.
Among Pais's other patents are inventions that stem from similar thinking, outlining pieces of technology necessary to make his creations come to fruition. His paper presented in 2019, titled "Room Temperature Superconducting System for Use on a Hybrid Aerospace Undersea Craft," proposes a system that can achieve superconductivity at room temperatures. This would become "a highly disruptive technology, capable of a total paradigm change in Science and Technology," conveys Pais.
High frequency gravitational wave generator.
Credit: Dr. Salvatore Pais
Another invention devised by Pais is an electromagnetic field generator that could generate "an impenetrable defensive shield to sea and land as well as space-based military and civilian assets." This shield could protect from threats like anti-ship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles that evade radar, coronal mass ejections, military satellites, and even asteroids.
Dr. Pais's ideas center around the phenomenon he dubbed "The Pais Effect". He referred to it in his writings as the "controlled motion of electrically charged matter (from solid to plasma) via accelerated spin and/or accelerated vibration under rapid (yet smooth) acceleration-deceleration-acceleration transients." In less jargon-heavy terms, Pais claims to have figured out how to spin electromagnetic fields in order to contain a fusion reaction – an accomplishment that would lead to a tremendous change in power consumption and an abundance of energy.
According to his bio in a recently published paper on a new Plasma Compression Fusion Device, which could transform energy production, Dr. Pais is a mechanical and aerospace engineer working at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), which is headquartered in Patuxent River, Maryland. Holding a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Pais was a NASA Research Fellow and worked with Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. His current Department of Defense work involves his "advanced knowledge of theory, analysis, and modern experimental and computational methods in aerodynamics, along with an understanding of air-vehicle and missile design, especially in the domain of hypersonic power plant and vehicle design." He also has expert knowledge of electrooptics, emerging quantum technologies (laser power generation in particular), high-energy electromagnetic field generation, and the "breakthrough field of room temperature superconductivity, as related to advanced field propulsion."
Suffice it to say, with such a list of research credentials that would make Nikola Tesla proud, Dr. Pais seems well-positioned to carry out groundbreaking work.
A craft using an inertial mass reduction device.
Credit: Salvatore Pais
The patents won't necessarily lead to these technologies ever seeing the light of day. The research has its share of detractors and nonbelievers among other scientists, who think the amount of energy required for the fields described by Pais and his ideas on electromagnetic propulsions are well beyond the scope of current tech and are nearly impossible. Yet investigators at The War Zone found comments from Navy officials that indicate the inventions are being looked at seriously enough, and some tests are taking place.
If you'd like to read through Pais's patents yourself, check them out here.
Laser Augmented Turbojet Propulsion System
Credit: Dr. Salvatore Pais
Study: People will donate more to charity if they think something’s in it for them
A study on charity finds that reminding people how nice it feels to give yields better results than appealing to altruism.
- A study finds asking for donations by appealing to the donor's self-interest may result in more money than appealing to their better nature.
- Those who received an appeal to self-interest were both more likely to give and gave more than those in the control group.
- The effect was most pronounced for those who hadn't given before.
Even the best charities with the longest records of doing great fundraising work have to spend some time making sure that the next donation checks will keep coming in. One way to do this is by showing potential donors all the good things the charity did over the previous year. But there may be a better way.
A new study by researchers in the United States and Australia suggests that appealing to the benefits people will receive themselves after a donation nudges them to donate more money than appealing to the greater good.
How to get people to give away free money
The postcards that were sent to different study subjects. The one on the left highlighted benefits to the self, while the one on the right highlighted benefits to others.List et al. / Nature Human Behaviour
The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, utilized the Pick.Click.Give program in Alaska. This program allows Alaska residents who qualify for dividends from the Alaska Permanent Fund, a yearly payment ranging from $800 to $2000 in recent years, to donate a portion of it to various in-state non-profit organizations.
The researchers randomly assigned households to either a control group or to receive a postcard in the mail encouraging them to donate a portion of their dividend to charity. That postcard could come in one of two forms, either highlighting the benefits to others or the benefits to themselves.
Those who got the postcard touting self-benefits were 6.6 percent more likely to give than those in the control group and gave 23 percent more on average. Those getting the benefits-to-others postcard were slightly more likely to give than those receiving no postcard, but their donations were no larger.
Additionally, the researchers were able to break the subject list down into a "warm list" of those who had given at least once before in the last two years and a "cold list" of those who had not. Those on the warm list, who were already giving, saw only minor increases in their likelihood to donate after getting a postcard in the mail compared to those on the cold list.
Additionally, the researchers found that warm-list subjects who received the self-interest postcard gave 11 percent more than warm-list subjects in the control group. Amazingly, among cold-list subjects, those who received a self-interest postcard gave 39 percent more.
These are substantial improvements. At the end of the study, the authors point out, "If we had sent the benefits to self message to all households in the state, aggregate contributions would have increased by nearly US$600,000."
To put this into perspective, in 2017 the total donations to the program were roughly $2,700,000.
Is altruism dead?
Are all actions inherently self-interested? Thankfully, no. The study focuses entirely on effective ways to increase charitable donations above levels that currently exist. It doesn't deny that some people are giving out of pure altruism, but rather that an appeal based on self-interest is effective. Plenty of people were giving before this study took place who didn't need a postcard as encouragement. It is also possible that some people donated part of their dividend check to a charity that does not work with Pick.Click.Give and were uncounted here.
It is also important to note that Pick.Click.Give does not provide services but instead gives money to a wide variety of organizations that do. Those organizations operate in fields from animal rescue to job training to public broadcasting. The authors note that it is possible that a more specific appeal to the benefits others will receive from a donation might prove more effective than the generic and all-inclusive "Make Alaska Better For Everyone" appeal that they used.
In an ideal world, charity is its own reward. In ours, it might help to remind somebody how warm and fuzzy they'll feel after donating to your cause.
