Paul Rand

PAUL RAND (BORN PERETZ ROSENBAUM, AUGUST 15, 1914 – NOVEMBER 26, 1996) was a well-known American graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs. Rand was educated at the Pratt Institute (1929-1932), the Parsons School of Design (1932-1933), and the Art Students League (1933-1934). He was one of the originators of the Swiss Style of graphic design. From 1956 to 1969, and beginning again in 1974, Rand taught design at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Rand was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972. He designed many posters and corporate identities, including the logos for IBM, UPS and ABC. Rand died of cancer in 1996.

Although Rand was most famous for the corporate logos he created in the 1950s and 1960s, his early work in page design was the initial source of his reputation. In 1936, Rand was given the job of setting the page layout for an Apparel Arts magazine anniversary issue. “His remarkable talent for transforming mundane photographs into dynamic compositions, which [. . .] gave editorial weight to the page” earned Rand a full-time job, as well as an offer to take over as art director for the Esquire-Coronet magazines. Initially, Rand refused this offer, claiming that he was not yet at the level the job required, but a year later he decided to go ahead with it, taking over responsibility for Esquire’s fashion pages at the young age of twenty-three.

The cover art for Direction magazine proved to be an important step in the development of the “Paul Rand look” that was not as yet fully developed. The December 1940 cover, which uses barbed wire to present the magazine as both a war-torn gift and a crucifix, is indicative of the artistic freedom Rand enjoyed at Direction; in Thoughts on Design Rand notes that it “is significant that the crucifix, aside from its religious implications, is a demonstration of pure plastic form as well . . . a perfect union of the aggressive vertical (male) and the passive horizontal (female).” In ways such as this, Rand was experimenting with the introduction of themes normally found in the “high arts” into his new graphic design, further advancing his life-long goal of bridging the gap between his profession and that of Europe’s modernist masters.

Though Rand was a recluse in his creative process, doing the vast majority of the design load despite having a large staff at varying points in his career, he was very interested in producing books of theory to illuminate his philosophies. Maholy-Nagy may have incited Rand’s zeal for knowledge when he asked his colleague if he read art criticism at their first meeting. Rand said no, prompting Moholy-Nagy to reply “Pity.” Heller elaborates on this meeting’s impact, noting that, “from that moment on, Rand devoured books by the leading philosophers on art, including Roger Fry, Alfred North Whitehead, and John Dewey.” These theoreticians would have a lasting impression on Rand’s work; in a 1995 interview with Michael Kroeger discussing, among other topics, the importance of Dewey’s Art as Experience, Rand elaborates on Dewey’s appeal:

[. . . Art as Experience] deals with everything—there is no subject he does not deal with. That is why it will take you one hundred years to read this book. Even today’s philosophers talk about it[.] [E]very time you open this book you find good things. I mean the philosophers say this, not just me. You read this, then when you open this up next year, that you read something new.

As is obvious, Dewey is an important source for Rand’s underlying sentiment in graphic design; on page one of Rand’s groundbreaking Thoughts on Design, the author begins drawing lines from Dewey’s philosophy to the need for “functional-aesthetic perfection” in modern art. Among the ideas Rand pushed in Thoughts on Design was the practice of creating graphic works capable of retaining their recognizable quality even after being blurred or mutilated, a test Rand routinely performed on his corporate identities.

http://www.paul-rand.com/foundation/biography/#.Uyr8gpUkSJU

Paul Rand, American Modernist, was one of the originators of Swiss Style of graphic design. He is best known for his work and design on corporate logos. He was born on 15th August 1914 and passed away on 26 November 2006 at the aged of 82 years old, from cancer. He was educated at Pratt Institute, Parsons The New School of Design and then the Arts Student League. He taught design at Yale University in New Haven for a few years. Though he was famous for his corporate logo works, he’s initial reputation was built on ‘page design when he was tasked the job of setting the page layout for the anniversary issue of Apparel Arts’ magazine, which earned him a full time job.

http://nattyow.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/paul-rand-milton-glaser/

Paul Rand was able to create instantly recognizable designs and his logos and brands became as familiar as the furniture. He did this by keeping his designs very simple which meant you could grasp the gist of a company in a single glance and wouldn't forget their branding very easily. He harmoniously combined geometric shapes, a limited color pallet, expert typography, and basic illustrations to create work that was easy on the eye and effortless to absorb. His work is useful for my 2D class because it shows how recognizable an image can be when harmoniously combining a few, well thought through, elements.