In May of this year, Massimo Vignelli updated and printed 500 limited edition and personally signed copies of his historical New York City subway map, which were then donated to, and sold exclusively through, Men's Vogue magazine.

The publication gave the proceeds from the posters, which sold at $299.00 on www.mensvogue.com to the nonprofit Green Worker Cooperatives, a South-Bronx based organization dedicated to building an alternative green community. All 500 posters were sold within three hours. 

It is not likely that anyone would be surprised by the rapid sales of this famous poster.  After all, Vignelli is a world-renowned designer who commands the respect and admiration of the design community as a whole and much of his work is considered collectible. Point in fact, the search for an original Vignelli map has been a treasure hunt for many throughout the world… including Vignelli himself.

First introduced in 1972, Vignelli's New York City subway map was instantly hailed as a graphic design icon. Though the map later drew controversy for the geographic liberties it took in order to maintain Vignelli's sleek modernist vision of train lines running only on 45 and 90 degree angles, it remains a legendary example of graphic design at its best. 

“Massimo had a desire to redesign the map to reflect the present system, color lines and nomenclature. In spite of the eccentricities of the official MTA subway map (not our design), some people are drawn to it simply because it is familiar. For those others who appreciate our design specifically, it is clear that they read it as a diagram rather than a geographic map — after all, shouldn’t a subway diagram simply show the subway system?” says Beatriz Cifuentes, vice president, Design, Vignelli Associates.

Vignelli’s New York-based firm, Vignelli Associates, has worked on some of today's most recognizable brands. Vignelli's American Airlines logo first launched in 1967 and is still used today. His 1998 rebranding of the Ducati motorcycle was widely embraced by a flux of new customers, and his packaging design accompanied the introduction of the IBM pc.

Many Vignelli Associates designs, including the subway map, can be found in the permanent collections of national and international museums including the Cooper-Hewitt, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York MoMA, the Die Neue Sammlung in Munich and Jerusalem's Israel Museum.

Printing a Masterpiece for a Master
Produced by Taylor Tocci & Co., the posters were run on Mohawk Superfine, Ultrawhite, Eggshell, 80 Cover using 4-color process plus a match blue grey for the water, and a second black for the outline frame. An 81-inch press was used to accommodate the oversized proportions of the 36” x 45” poster.

Noel Tocci, owner of Taylor Tocci, and friend of Vignelli, says,  "What Massimo cares about, he really cares about. He has so much passion for what he does that he makes others see it too. And, he had a vision of a grand city in a grand size. From a production standpoint, however, it created challenges.”

“First, we needed to print on over-sized equipment (an 81” 6-color press) that is typically relegated to point-of-purchase and other slick oversized ad work, and almost exclusively on coated paper. Second, we needed to print at an incredibly high level on such equipment. In essence, we needed to produce a limited edition art print, on uncoated paper, for Massimo Vignelli no less, while matching plate curves to corresponding ink densities, running with little or no variance, and registering all the process-built colors of the subway lines. “

When it comes to challenging printing, Tocci believes that good printing is nothing more than good planning and the ability to control and minimize variables, “One of the biggest variables in printing is paper. With all the challenges I described, there were never any questions that it would be Mohawk, because from a performance standpoint, in my opinion they make the best uncoated paper on the planet. Of all their offerings, Superfine is a natural because it’s acid free, archival (listed in the library of congress as such) and a personal favorite of Massimo’s, not only for its performance but for its beautiful feel and touch.”

Of the highly positive reaction to the posters, Cifuentes says, “We believe the popularity of these new prints is in large part due to the original, of course. Back then Massimo was able to organize all the information in a syntactically consistent and pragmatically understandable way. The final solution was both functional and visually elegant. That is what people think of Massimo:  he has an elegant mind.”

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If you’d like to see Mohawk Superfine capabilities for yourself, there is no better example of the attributes that set it apart from other premium smooth uncoated papers than the promotional book entitled Personal Best Mohawk Superfine. Art Director Michael Bierut and the design team at Pentagram, New York brought design to a whole new level with this inspiring piece.
 
To request Personal Best Mohawk Superfine, please click here.

8/13/08