Franco Grignani still has a posthumous influence on contemporary design

Now and again it’s nice to look back on some of the incredible graphic design that predates your birth and marvel at the output of men who’d mastered their craft before you’d even learnt to draw breath. It’s an intimidating and humbling activity but always reveals a handful of practitioners who demand to be posthumously acknowledged for their undeniable influence on today’s design landscape.

One such design legend is Franco Grignani, a man famed almost exclusively for the creation of the ubiquitous Woolmark logo, a mark often lauded as the best around by the design community at large. But Franco’s contribution to global design is much greater than a single logo mark; his Swiss-influenced modernism and geometric experimentation can be seen in many facets of contemporary design today from small design studios like Hey in Barcelona and Studio Dumbar in Rotterdam, right the way through to major world players like Pentagram.