title or description: Logo design of AA
designer: Massimo Vignelli
client: American Airlines
year: 1967
American Airlines identity and branding were designed by Massimo Vignelli’s design firm, Unimark International in 1967. The logo contains two colors which represent American flag: blue and red. He created something very simple: two A letters and geometric X-shaped eagle. Massimo Vignelli was born and raised in Milan in 1931. He first studied architecture in Politecnico di Milano, and later at the Università di Architettura, Venice. He came to America in 1957, His portfolio contains every field of design including advertising, identity, packaging, product, industrial, interior and architectural design.
His first …show more content…
The client of this project is American Airlines which is founded in 1930, formerly American Airways Inc.It is a major American airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. They operate international and domestic network which is the second largest airline by number of destinations served, after United Airlines. The assignment was introduced to designers by Henry Dreyfuss, the great designer who was a consultant to American Airlines.
The logo of AA designed by Vignelli is one of the airlines logos that did not changed for over 40 years.
He worked on the project with Heinz Waibl who studied with Massimo Vignelli in high school from 1946 to 1950 and they were close friends while studying Politecnico di Milano.
Originally, the logo firstly designed without eagle, just typeface(Helvetica) in two plain colors. Half of letters are blue(Pantone 281), the rest is red(Pantone 485). He did not designed stylized eagle, but later the image of eagle was added at the request of the client. From Vignelli’s point of view he eagle should be real. If you do an eagle,its supposed to be like the dignity of an eagle. It cant be look as cartoon out of an …show more content…
New York Subway signage system,corporate identities of American Airlines and the Knoll furniture are directly connected to the design of Vignelli.
A significant note in the growth of American graphic design resulted from the migration of many European designers. Alexey Brodovitch was one of those people who brought European modernism to American graphic design.
He came to the United States in 1930 for begining to advertising. In US he taught students the essentials of European design, while making freelance illustration tasks in Philadelphia and New York. Through his teaching, he created a generation of designers who have a delicate designing approach. In 1934 the editor of Harper’s Bazaar, saw his works and hired him to be its art director.
At Harper’s Bazaar, where he was art director till 1958, he was working with European artists such as Man Ray, Salvador Dali, and A.M. Cassandre, as well as photographers Bill Brandt, Brasai, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. This collabration was something which has big impact on American Graphic