Graphic Designer of the Month: Paul Rand

Picture found here.

Book cover design
by Paul Rand.
Picture found here.

A Short Biography: The man who made corporate America cool was born named Peretz Rosenbaum (Source #1) on August 15th, 1914 in Brooklyn, New York. "He embraced design at a very young age, painting signs for his father's grocery store as well as for school events at P.S. 109. Rand's father did not believe art could provide his son with a sufficient livelihood, and so he required Paul to attend Manhattan's Harren High School while taking night classes at the Pratt Institute, Rand was largely "self-taught as a designer, learning about the works of Cassandre (pseudonym of Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron) and László Moholy-Nagy from European magazines such as Gebrauchsgraphik.

Book covers designed
by Paul Rand.
Picture found here.

"Rand was educated at the Pratt Institute (1929–1932), Parsons The New School for Design (1932–33), and the Art Students League(1933–1934). 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.

"Rand devoted his final years to design work and the writing of his memoirs. In 1996, he died of cancer at age 82 (November 26th, 1996) in Norwalk, Connecticut. He is buried in Beth El Cemetery." (Source #2)

Logos designed by Paul Rand. Picture found here.

What Was His Specialty:
"The International Typographic Style, also known as the Swiss Style, is a graphic design style developed in Switzerland in the 1950s that emphasizes cleanliness, readability and objectivity. Hallmarks of the style are asymmetric layouts, use of a grid, sans-serif typefaces like Akzidenz Grotesk, and flush left, ragged right text. The style is also associated with a preference for photography in place of illustrations or drawings. Many of the early International Typographic Style works featured typography as a primary design element in addition to its use in text, and it is for this that the style is named.

Book cover design
by Paul Rand.
Picture found here.

"Other designers who use this Max Bill, Adrian Frutiger, Armin Hofmann, Richard Paul Lohse, Josef Müller-Brockmann, Emil Ruder, and Jan Tschichold." (Source #3)

About His Work & Influences: "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. László Moholy-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." Steven Heller ( wrote "Thoughts on Rand" for Print magazine in May–June 1997 edition) 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:

Book cover design
by Paul Rand.
Picture found here.

'[. . . 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.'

"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 recognizable quality even after being blurred or mutilated, a test Rand routinely performed on his corporate identities." (Source #2)

A set of children's books
designed by Paul Rand.
Picture found here.

Where He Can Be Found: Though this great designer is dead, his website is located here at http://www.paul-rand.com/, with a simple aesthetic I think he would be most proud of.

Effect On Graphic Design: "Rand's most widely known contributions to design are his corporate identities, many of which are still in use. IBM, ABC, Cummins Engine, UPS, and the now-infamous Enron, among many others, owe Rand their graphical heritage. One of his strengths, as Moholy-Nagy pointed out, was his ability as a salesman to explain the needs his identities would address for the corporation. According to graphic designer Louis Danziger:

'He almost singlehandedly convinced business that design 

was an effective tool. [. . .] Anyone designing in the 1950s and 1960s 

owed much to Rand, who largely made it possible 

for us to work. He more than anyone else made the profession 

reputable. We went from being commercial artists to being 

graphic designers largely on his merits.'

Book cover design

by Paul Rand.

Picture found here.

"Although his logos may be interpreted as simplistic, Rand was quick to point out in A Designer's Art that 'ideas do not need to be esoteric to be original or exciting.' His American Broadcasting Company trademark, created in 1961, then used by ABC-TV in the fall of 1962, epitomizes that ideal of minimalism while proving Rand's point that a logo 'cannot survive unless it is designed with the utmost simplicity and restraint.' Rand remained vital as he aged, continuing to produce important corporate identities into the eighties and nineties with a rumored $100,000 price per single solution. The most notable of his later works was his collaboration with Steve Jobs for the NeXT Computer corporate identity; Rand's simple black box breaks the company name into two lines, producing a visual harmony that endeared the logogram to Jobs. Steve Jobs was pleased: just prior to Rand's death in 1996, his former client labeled him, simply, 'the greatest living graphic designer.' " (Source #2)

Paul Rand's book
Thoughts On Design.
Picture found here.

Bibliography: 

• Rand, Paul (1970). Thoughts On Design. Studio Vista Van Nostrand Reinhold. ISBN 978-0289798362.

• Rand, Paul (1985). Paul Rand: A Designer's Art. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300082821.

• Rand, Paul (1994). Design, Form, and Chaos. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300055535.

• Rand, Paul (1996). From Lascaux to Brooklyn. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300066760.

Sources:
- #1 - http://www.kettererkunst.com/bio/paul-rand-1914.shtml
- #2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rand
- #3 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Typographic_Style

Also, this video, which I first saw here: 

http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/design/video/2012/may/25/

phaidons-great-way-to-start-the-day/.