Paul Rand: A Brief Biography

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.

Early life and education

Peretz Rosenbaum was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1914. As Orthodox Jewish law forbids the
creation of graven images that can be worshiped as idols, Rands career creating icons venerated
in the temple of global capitalism seemed as unlikely as any. It was one that he embraced at a very
young age, painting signs for his fathers grocery store as well as for school events at P.S. 109. Rands
father did not believe art could provide his son with a sufficient livelihood, and so he required Paul
to attend Manhattans Harren High School while taking night classes at the Pratt Institute, though
neither of these schools offered Rand much stimulation. Despite studying at Pratt and other
institutions in the New York area (including Parsons School of Design and the Art Students League),
Rand was by-and-large self-taught as a designer, learning about the works of Cassandre and
Moholy-Nagy from European magazines such as [Gebrauchsgraphik].

Early career

His career began with humble assignments, starting with a part-time position creating stock
images for a syndicate that supplied graphics to various newspapers and magazines. Between his
class assignments and his work, Rand was able to amass a fairly large portfolio, largely influenced
by the German advertising style Sachplakat (ornamental poster) as well as the works of Gustav
Jensen. It was at around this time that he decided to camouflage (and abbreviate) the overtly
Jewish identity telegraphed by Peretz Rosenbaum, shortening his forename to Paul and taking
Rand from an uncle to form his new surname. Morris Wyszogrod, a friend and associate of Rand,
noted that he figured that Paul Rand, four letters here, four letters there, would create a nice
symbol. So he became Paul Rand. Peter Behrens notes the importance of this new title: Rands
new persona, which served as the brand name for his many accomplishments, was the first
corporate identity he created, and it may also eventually prove to be the most enduring.

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Indeed, Rand was rapidly moving into the forefront of his profession. In his early twenties he was
producing work that began to garner international acclaim, notably his designs on the covers of
Direction magazine, which Rand produced for no fee in exchange for full artistic freedom. Among
the accolades Rand received were those of Moholy-Nagy:

Among these young Americans it seems to be that Paul Rand is one of the best and most capable
[. . .] He is a painter, lecturer, industrial designer, [and] advertising artist who draws his knowledge
and creativeness from the resources of this country. He is an idealist and a realist, using the
language of the poet and business man. He thinks in terms of need and function. He is able to
analyze his problems but his fantasy is boundless.

The reputation Rand so rapidly amassed in his prodigious twenties never dissipated; rather, it only
managed to increase through the years as the designers influential works and writings firmly
established him as the eminence grise of his profession.

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
Esquires 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 Europes modernist masters.

Corporate identities

Indisputably, Rands most widely known contribution to graphic design are his corporate identities,
many of which are still in use. IBM, ABC, Cummins Engine, Westinghouse, and UPS, among many
others, owe their graphical heritage to him, though UPS recently carried out a controversial update
to the classic Rand design. One of his primary strengths, as Maholy-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.

Rands defining corporate identity was his IBM logo in 1956, which as Mark Favermann notes was
not just an identity but a basic design philosophy that permeated corporate consciousness and
public awareness. The logo was modified by Rand in 1960, and the striped logo in 1972. Rand also
designed packaging and marketing materials for IBM from the early 1970s until the early 1980s,
including the well known Eye-Bee-M poster. Ford appointed Rand in the 1960s to redesign their
corporate logo, but afterwards chose not to use his modernized design.
Although his logos may be interpreted as simplistic, Rand was quick to point out in A Designers
Art that ideas do not need to be esoteric to be original or exciting. His American Broadcasting
Company trademark, created in 1962, epitomizes that ideal of minimalism while proving Rands
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;
Rands simplistic black box breaks the company name into two lines, producing a visual harmony
that endeared the logogram to Jobs. If ever there was a pleased client, it was indeed Steve Jobs:
just prior to Rands death in 1996, his former client labeled him, simply, the greatest living
graphic designer.

Influences and other works

Development of theory

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 Rands 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 meetings 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 Rands
work; in a 1995 interview with Michael Kroeger discussing, among other topics, the importance of
Deweys Art as Experience, Rand elaborates on Deweys appeal:

[. . . Art as Experience] deals with everythingthere is no subject he does not deal with. That is why
it will take you one hundred years to read this book. Even todays 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 Rands underlying sentiment in graphic design; on
page one of Rands groundbreaking Thoughts on Design, the author begins drawing lines from
Deweys 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.

Criticism

Despite the prestige graphic designers place on his first book, subsequent works, notably From
Lascaux to Brooklyn (1996), earned Rand accusations of being reactionary and hostile to new ideas
about design. Heller defends Rands later ideas, calling the designer an enemy of mediocrity, a
radical modernist while Mark Favermann considers the period one of a reactionary, angry old
man. Regardless of this dispute, Rands contribution to modern graphic design theory in total is
widely considered intrinsic to the professions development.

Modernist influences
Undoubtedly, the core ideology that drove Rands career, and hence his lasting influence, was the
modernist philosophy he so revered. He celebrated the works of artists from Paul Cezanne to Jan
Tschichold, and constantly attempted to draw the connections between their creative output and
significant applications in graphic design. In A Designers Art Rand clearly demonstrates his
appreciation for the underlying connections:

From Impressionism to Pop Art, the commonplace and even the comic strip have become
ingredients for the artists caldron. What Cezanne did with apples, Picasso with guitars, Leger with
machines, Schwitters with rubbish, and Duchamp with urinals makes it clear that revelation does not
depend upon grandiose concepts. The problem of the artist is to defamiliarize the ordinary.

This idea of defamiliarizing the ordinary played an important part in Rands design choices.
Working with manufacturers provided him the challenge of utilizing his corporate identities to create
lively and original packaging for mundane items, such as light bulbs for Westinghouse.

Inspirations

Paul Rand believed that good design was a way of life. His inspirations led him to develop some of
the most ground-breaking creations and writings in graphic design history. Below is a selection of
artists, designers, architects, writers and others who have inspired Paul Rand in life and work.

This is simply a small collection, but hopefully youll find the same inspirations and continue to learn
more about these great pioneers.

ARTICLE

1949 - Black in the Visual Arts

Originally published in Graphic Forms: The Arts as Related to the Book, Harvard University
Press.

1952 - Posters

Originally published in Posters: Fifty artists and designers analyze their approach, their methods,
and their solutions to poster design and poster advertising.

1952 - The Trademark as an Illustrative Device

Originally published in Seven Designers Look At Trademark Design.

1960 - Advertisement: Ad Vivum or Ad Hominem?

By Paul and Ann Rand, originally published in a special issue of Daedalus: The Visual Arts Today.

1960 - The Art of the Package

Originally published in PRINT: January/February, 1960.

1965 - Design and the Play Instinct

Originally published in Education of Vision.

 1965 - Trademarks of the World Preface

Originally published in Trademarks of the World.

1971 - Integrity and Invention

Graphis Magazine introduction.

1981 - On the RCA Ad

Originally published in The Design Concept.

1985 - The Politics of Design

Originally published in A Designers Art.

1987- Observations on Intuition

Originally published in the "STA Design Journal".

1989 - The Case for the Ampersand

A critical review of Eric Gills An Essay on Typography.

1991 - Logos, Flags, and Escutcheons

AIGA article by Paul Rand.

1992 - Confusion and Chaos: The Seduction of Contemporary Graphic Design

Originally published in the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, Volume 10, Number 1, 1992.

1993 - Object Lessons

Originally published in The New Criterion.

1993 - Failure by Design

Originally published in the New York Times.

1996 - Language of Art

An addendum article to Lascaux to Brooklyn. Contributed by John Maeda.

A Selection of Quotes

Great quotes from various resources.

Suggested Readings

A list of books for further reading on art, philosphy, design and more.
Paul Rand received extensive acknowledgment for his talent and groundbreaking designs. In the
1950s, he was voted one of the ten best art directors in the USA. He also won many design awards,
including Gold Medals from the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and the Art Directors Club
of New York. He was elected to the latters Hall of Fame in 1972. Rand was also a member of the
Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI).

His work has been exhibited at the National Museum, Stockholm (1947), and at the Museum of
Modern Art, New York (1954), and in exhibitions of the Alliance Graphique Internationale in Paris,
London, and Lausanne.

TEACHING

The fourth part of Paul Rand's career was when he started teaching design and other related
elements. He taught at the Cooper Union in the year 1942 and at the Pratt Institute in 1946. He was
associated in a similar teaching capacity with the Yale University's Graduate School of Design and the
School of Architecture as a Professor of Graphic Design from 1956 to 1992.

BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS

Paul Rand wrote several design related books and articles throughout his lifetime. He published his
non-descriptive book, "Thoughts on Design", with reproductions of almost one hundred of his
designs and some of the best words yet written on graphic design, in 1946. It was a publishing event
that gave him added strength, improving his international reputation and identifying him as an
influencing designer, from Zurich to Tokyo.

The 1985 publication, Paul Rand: A Designer's Art gave insight to his work, influences, beliefs and a
number of reprinted essays from his illustrious graphic design career. As seen in his text Design,
Form and Chaos published in 1994, Rand was also highly critical of many aspects of contemporary
graphic design practice.

Paul Rand also published many children's books with his wife Ann Rand, which are known for their
clever artwork. One such example, "Sparkle and Spin", is a mid-century children's classic re-
published by Chronicle books.