DOT ZERO 1

Robert Malone (editor), Massimo Vignelli (designer)

Robert Malone (editor), Massimo Vignelli (designer): DOT ZERO 1. NYC: Dot Zero / Finch Pruyn, 1966. First edition. A very good magazine in stiff, printed wrappers: white wrappers age-toned. Interior unmarked and very clean. Out-of-print.

9 x 12 perfect-bound magazine with 48 pages of editorial content dealing with design and its effects on the man-made environment. DOT ZERO was an interesting publishing experiment that was about fifteen years ahead of its time. Sponsored and underwritten by a paper company, it paired Robert Malone's editorial sense with Massimo Vignelli's aesthetic sensibilities in a journal that has never been replicated. DOT ZERO made a real attempt to address design issues in the environmental context.

Back in 1966, the medium truly was the massage. Only in the pages of DOT ZERO could inquiring minds find articles about computer graphics, corporate identity, paperbacks as a mass medium and environmental management. A very stimulating publication that only lasted five issues.

From Kevin Rau's excellent website devoted to the history of Unimark: ... Dot Zero was one of the most unique, though short-lived, of Unimark's undertakings...the magazine was aimed at architects, planners and engineers as well as graphic designers... Articles on design theory, concrete poetry and manipulated images appeared regularly. With a circulation of about 18,000, Dot Zero was sponsored by Finch Pruyn, a paper manufacturer based in Glen Falls, NY. After only five issues, Finch decided to pull financial support and production was halted.

DOT ZERO 1 (n.d.) contents:

• Intaglio relief cover printed on Finch,Pruyn opaque text and cover papers
• Introduction by Herbert Bayer
• Editorial by Robert Malone
• Decline of the Visual by Marshall McLuhan
• Computer Graphics: Extending the Visual Media by Maurice L. Constant
• Variations on the Face by Bruno Munari
• The Psychology of Visual Communication by Martin Krampen
• Printing as an Art Form by Eugene Feldman
• Questions of Legibility by Bror Zachrisson
• Alternatives to Architecture by Arthur Drexler
• Greetings by cards by Josef Albers, Roy Lichtenstein and others from a MOMA exhibit
• Vasarely review

Massimo Vignelli recalls the exact day that he found the design language that he would be known for. It was 1963, he had a studio in Milan, Lella & Massimo Vignelli Design & Architecture, where he designed in a reductive manner using Helvetica, black rules, and solid colored backgrounds. He put this into practice for Sansoni designing formats for scores of series and hundreds of books until leaving Italy for American in 1965. Today he uses more Bodoni, but hasnıt changed his basic design attitude one iota. He made his early reputation by designing strict formats for series like these.

"I always worked like this from the very beginning, I never had another way but this structural approach," admits Vignelli proudly. "My aim was always to reach maximum impact, so I used Helvetica on white or solid color backgrounds, which stood out ‹ boom ‹ from the texture of all the other books on the shelves. I designed many series this way, I had some books with only white covers with type raining down and some with a black and white illustration on bottom. We wanted to develop standards to avoid gratuitous criticism by publisherıs wives or secretaries and sales people. First and foremost we were searching for objectivity. So we convinced the publisher that a book was like a soap box. The publisherıs brand was the important thing, so each book looked alike. We played safe with the illustration by using things from the past. Who could argue with Rembrandt and Durer?"

Price: $250.00
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