Dutch designer Bob Noorda, who, with Massimo Vignelli, designed the official look of New York’s subway system, died earlier this month at the age of 82. If you’re obsessed with Helvetica, or suffering from fatigue thereof, you can probably blame Noorda, who modernized the MTA with an iconic visual language using the sans-serif font. Not only does his work direct the traffic flow of around 5.2 million subway riders daily, but he’s also been collected by MoMA and credited with injecting Modernist thinking into the corporate world as an “early proponent of unified branding.” More words and pictures on Noorda, after the jump.
One of Noorda’s most famous maxims was “Don’t bore the public with mysterious designs.” Seeing as how his MTA signage from 1966 is still in use today, we’d mark that one as a win.
Noorda co-founded Unimark design studio in 1965 with Italian designer Massimo Vignelli and a group of other American and European designers, initially setting up shop in Chicago and Milan. As the New York Times notes, “Theirs was among the first international design firms to base their work on the Modernist principle that a good design could have a positive effect on all aspects of life, not just on business.”
A selection of corporate identity work below:
Identities for (clockwise, from top left) Pirelli, Biennale di Venezia, Agip, and the Milan Metro, never implemented.
Additional notes on Noorda at Fast Company.
Comments (5)
[...] There’s a great small article today written about one of the guys who designed the NYC MTA subways signs and displays. I have always loved their motifs and design; little did I know that this was actually something other people picked up on, let alone a cutting edge design campaign. just a small blurb today..check out the story on flavorpill… [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Flavorpill, aigamemphis, Holly Hodges, Jesse Peyronel, Caroline Palmer and others. Caroline Palmer said: Bob Noorda, Helveti-Master and NYC MTA designer, Dies at Age 82: http://bit.ly/9POmgv [...]
[...] fans.. the man who designed the look behind New York’s subway system, Bob Noorda, has died earlier this month. His designs are still being used in the MTA since 1966.. so simple yet still [...]
My car runs on Agip.
For more information about Noorda’s career, read “Unimark International: The Design of Business and the Business of Design” by Jan Conradi. People seem to think that branding is a new area of corporate involvement, but not so. Noorda and the Unimark designers were innovative in helping many firms analyze, develop and implement identity programs in the late 1960s and 70s. Much of that work, as noted in the previous link, is still in use today.
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