Paul Rand: American Graphic Designer Biography

Table of Contents

Introduction
Factors that Shaped Rand’s Modernism
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Born on August 15, 1914, Paul Rand is a famous corporate logo designer known for his modernistic view towards graphic design. By the time he died on November 26, 1996, he had created thousands of logos, written several books, and passed his knowledge to the next generations by teaching as a professor emeritus at Yale University. His creativity is immortalized in some of his outstanding logos for reputable companies, such as IBM, ABC, NeXT, UPS, and Morningstar, Inc., among other related designs. Rand revolutionized America’s understanding of visual communication by introducing European avant-garde ideas of mixing visual arts with commercial designs. He knew how to combine colorful expressions and topography to de-familiarize the ordinary, which underscores his modernistic ideas on graphic design. From a young age, Rand loved to paint, and he espoused design by creating signs and logos for his family grocery store and events in his school. He was largely self-taught, but his Jewish father valued formal education, and thus Rand was enrolled at Haaren High School where he would study during the day and attend night classes at the Pratt Institute.

However, the story is Rand becoming a pioneer in commercial graphic design in the US is subject to social and historical contexts within which he grew up. Some important happenings in his life shaped the course of his career. Additionally, World War II ended at the right time for Rand to change his approach towards graphic design. This paper discusses Paul Rand’s works and career as a graphic designer, specifically highlighting the social and historical contexts that influenced his works. This paper will show that Rand’s modernistic view about graphic design was a product of his environment.

Factors that Shaped Rand’s Modernism

Rand started his career at a young age during his high school years by working part-time to create stock images for a syndicate that had been contracted to supply graphics to various magazines and newspapers at the time. During his time at Pratt Institute, he was intrigued by the concept of object poster, which was a common German advertising style, also known as Sachplakat (Consuegra, 2004). The concept of object poster involves the use of catchy but simplified cultured letters, shapes, and images to shift focus to a central object. This description is the underlying aspect of logos and graphic design. He got the opportunity to display his creativity in 1936 when he was given a job to design the page layout for a popular magazine at the time, Apparel Arts (Meggs & Purvis, 2011). However, his popularity grew significantly when he started designing covers for Direction Magazine, pro bono.

The most outstanding work at Direction was the 1940 cover for the magazine using barbed wire, as shown in this photograph (Figure 1). The magazine issue with this cover became popular because it was used as a crucifix and a war-torn gift. However, it is important to understand the inspiration behind this cover. In 1940, World War II started after it broke out on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Therefore, people around the world were apprehensive, especially given memories of World War I, which had ended two decades earlier, were still fresh. As such, Rand’s ingenuity to play around with images to convey a deep message that resonated with millions of people affected by the war. Consequently, it suffices to argue that Rand’s work, at the time, was influenced by the socio-political issues that were happening around him. In addition, Rand’s work was affected by these issues. This argument is important because it forms the basis for understanding his other designs starting from the 1950s.

After World War II, Rand embarked on another journey where he started designing logos from corporations. According to a fellow graphic designer, Louis Danziger, Rand

An 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 (Roberts, 2015, para. 6).

He used his business acumen skills and the ability to sell his ideas to convince businesses to change their approach towards branding and adopt the use of logos. Before this time, companies were focused on writing messages as a form of branding and advertising, but Rand emphasized the importance of visuals and graphic design. In 1956, he created one of his career-defining logos – the IBM logo.

This new design mission inspired by Rand changed almost all aspects of the company from advertising to architecture. The first design had “eye” “bee” and letter “M” images, pronounced as eye-bee-M as shown in Figure 2 beside. The idea behind this logo was to stand out using a simple and conservative image as a way of looking towards the future to show the company’s renewed growth and vision. This idea was new in the US, and it contributed significantly to Rand’s reputation. The new IBM identity was hinged on Rand’s artistic and creative design. Later on, Rand continued working on the logo and modifying it to make IMB the first company to communicate brand identity and advertisement through visual communication campaigns.

After the breakthrough with IBM, Rand drew the attention of other reputable brands, such as ABC, UPS, Enron, and Westinghouse. The NeXT logo is another outstanding graphic design work by Rand – a project he undertook in 1986. Steve Jobs requested Rand to come up with a visual identity for a computer company. Rand started working on the project immediately, and within days, he wrote a 100-page proposal describing all the creative aspects that would be involved in designing the logo (Grapheine, 2019). Rand was an astute businessperson and presenting detailed proposals to his clients was one of his selling strategies. Initially, the logo was supposed to be “Next”, but after careful consideration, he changed it to “NeXT”. This technical decision was meant to draw attention to readers as they would concentrate on the two capital letters at the end of the word before going back to read it as “next”. Therefore, Rand became philosophical about his ideas, which made him an outstanding graphic designer.

Rand was undoubtedly a successful graphic designer who revolutionized the way businesses created an identity in the US, starting from the 1950s. However, his work had a philosophical bearing, and thus it is important to understand what influenced him towards this direction. After World War II, most prominent artists and designers moved to the US. This occurrence played a central role in the advancement of Rand’s work. First, he adored European modernism and abstraction, specifically by following Sachplakat during his teenage years. Therefore, when European artists started moving to the US, he had an opportunity to meet and learn from them about their ideas and style. His moment of change occurred when he met his idol, László Moholy-Nagy, a Hungarian artist who had moved to the US. Moholy-Nagy encouraged Rand to read about art criticism and philosophy and, he started redefining his work (Grapheine, 2019). In one of his books, A Designer’s Art, Rand (1985) argues, “ideas do not need to be esoteric to be original or exciting” (p. 46). Therefore, Rand’s inclining towards philosophy, which is one of the aspects that made him stand out, was a product of the post-World War II environment created by the immigration of European artists to the US.

Several lessons have emerged from reading different sources about Paul Rand and his work. First, he easily adapted to his environment and sought to create designs that resonated with people at any given time. For instance, the barbed wire logo that he created for the Direction magazine in 1940 was influenced by World War II, which had just started. After the war, Rand quickly capitalized on the movement of European artists to the US to advance his knowledge of modernistic art. However, his decision to embrace modernism starting from the 1950s was partly ideological. The Cold War started immediately after World War II, and it was mainly a question of conflicting ideologies- communism versus democracy. At the time, adopting modernism was considered an important step in distancing an individual from communism. Therefore, Rand’s modernistic approach to graphic design was inspired by the need to oppose communism. As such, it suffices to argue that Rand’s ideas and perspective towards graphic design were products of his environment.

Conclusion

Paul Rand benefited immensely from the environment in which he was born and brought up, which contributed significantly to his success as a graphic designer. From his childhood, he had the opportunity to paint, and with the support of his father, he joined institutions of higher learning where he improved his skills and knowledge. The issue of influence from his surroundings features prominently in Rand’s life and success. For instance, I believe that the opportunity to design a cover for the Direction magazine in 1940, thus coinciding with the start of World War II changed his life tremendously. It put his work in the limelight to convince the public and potential clients that he was an ingenious graphic designer ready to redefine the concept of logos at both individual and corporate levels.

Additionally, the story about how Rand adopted modernism, as it was a popular way of standing against communism, underscores the important role that his surroundings played in shaping his work. Therefore, I think as designers, we should draw inspiration from our environments and create works that resonate with people and the occurrences of our times. For instance, Rand used World War II and the Cold War to establish and grow his brand – perhaps we could use the current Covid-19 outbreak as an inspiration for our works.