Paul Rand was an important graphic designer and art director in the twentieth century. He was the pioneer of iconic corporate logo designs for major firms, including IBM, ABC, Morningstar, Inc., NeXT Computer, Yale University and Enron. He was an avid practitioner of Swiss Style of graphic designing in American advertising industry.
Rand, initially named Peretz Rosenbaum, was born on August 15, 1914, in Brooklyn, New York, Since a very early age, he had shown an interest in painting and designing . Paul attended night classes at the Pratt Institute from 1929 to 1932 and attended several other art schools such as The New School for Design, the Art Students League and Yale University in Connecticut. Although Rand received extensive training in the arts, Rand developed his graphic sense through self-education largely, as he voraciously read the European magazines, discovering the works of Cassandre and László Moholy-Nagy.
Paul rand was greatly responsible for defining visual culture in America as he radically transformed advertising. Rand earned his ultimate success by designing corporate logos. Paul Rand became a house hold name for logo designing in corporate industry. In 1956, IBM became one of the companies that truly defined rand’s identity and put him on the map. He revised the IBM logo design in 1960 and yet again in 1972 with the famous stripes pattern. Other evidence of Rand’s graphic genius is seen in NeXT Computer corporate identity project, ABC, UPS AND ERON.
I believe rand is of the most successful, influential and revolutionary graphic designers of all time. He has mastered the technique of simplicity in design as he manages to make striking and effective designs by using the most basic components and strategically arranging them with a modern approach. With the purpose that graphic design serves, it calls for design to be recognizable and easily understood which I think rand has done expertly by making these iconic brands who they are today.
Steve Jobs admired Rand’s graphic creativity and called him “the greatest living graphic designer.”
Paul Rand said, “Visual communications of any kind, whether persuasive or informative, from billboards to birth announcements, should be seen as the embodiment of form and function: the integration of the beautiful and the useful.” It’s not only about how it looks, or how it works, but about how it looks and works together.
RAND’S WORK:
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
INSPIRED WORK:
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
References:
Paul Rand – http://www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/paul-rand
Paul Rand, the Visionary Who Showed Us That Design Matters – http://www.wired.com/2015/04/paul-rand-visionary-showed-us-design-matters/
The Influence of Paul Rand’s Thoughts on Design – http://justcreative.com/2014/08/15/the-influence-of-paul-rands-thoughts-on-design/