Massimo Vignelli was born January 10, 1931 in Milan, Italy. Vignelli studied architecture at Politecnico di Milano, the largest technical college in Italy, and then at Università Iuav di Venezia later in his life.
Between the years of 1957 and 1960 he came to America for a fellowship before returning to New York in 1966. There, he started a branch of the company Unimark International, a design firm founded by Massimo Vignelli and five other partners. The company quickly became on of the largest design firms in the world, creating "recognizable corporate identities" such as American Airlines, Ford Motor Company, Gillette, JC Penny, and more.
Massimo Vignelli is most known for his design of the New York City Subway system map.
Massimo also designed the sign system for the DC Metro and was the one to adopt the word Metro for it in similarity to other subways.
Massimo Vignelli resigned from the company in 1971 and founded Vignelli Associates with his wife Lella Vignelli.
"The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design."