Pentagram partner and former Vignelli employee Michael Beirut paid tribute to the designer in Design Observer:
"He was able to bring enthusiasm, joy and intensity to the smallest design challenge. Even after fifty years, he could delight in designing something like a business card as if he had never done one before."
"It was Massimo who taught me one of the simplest things in the world: that if you do good work, you get more good work to do, and conversely bad work brings more bad work. It sounds simple, but it's remarkable, in a lifetime of pragmatics and compromises, how easy it is to forget: the only way to do good work is simply to do good work. Massimo did good work."
Vignelli's family announced he was gravely ill earlier this month, when his son Luca issued a public invitation to anyone who had been inspired by Vignelli and his work to write him a letter.
Vignelli died at his home in Manhattan on Tuesday morning and is survived by his wife, his son and daughter, and three grandchildren.
