RIP Bob Noorda

“Don’t bore the public with mysterious designs,” Mr. Noorda once said, and he put that dictum into practice. He was a master of spare, elegant and logical designs that caught the eye, from minimalist corporate logos for the Italian publishing house Feltrinelli and the ENI Group of Milan to impressionistic posters for Pirelli, the Italian tire maker.

Mr. Noorda’s best-known work in the United States was for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which in 1966 commissioned his firm, Unimark International, to modernize and unify the look of the subway system’s signs. The firm had been recommended by Mildred Constantine, an influential design curator at the Museum of Modern Art.

Bob Noorda, an internationally known graphic designer who helped introduce a Modernist look to advertising posters, corporate logos and, in the 1960s, the entire New York City subway system, died on Jan. 11 in Milan, his adopted city. He was 82.

Read the entire piece over at: NYT Art & Design.

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