Categories: Marketing

Paul Rand: A Biography

Paul Rand is a legend. He was born Peretz Rosenbaum on August 15, 1914 and died on November 26, 1996. His long life was filled with a career spanning seven decades and took the form of four different stages; including media promotion and cover design, advertising design, corporate identification programs, and educator. (1)

Educated in the 1930’s, Paul Rand was exposed to and influenced by the modernists, especially Klee and Kandinsky, and the movements including cubism, constructivism and de stijl. He studied at Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Design, and the Art Students League with George Grosz. (2) It was this early education that helped form Rand’s “understanding that freely invented shapes could have a self-contained life, both symbolic and expressive, as a visual communications tool.” (3)

Paul Rand’s logos stuck to the principles of simplicity, ease of recognition and most important, an absolute appropriateness to their subject matter. This last point is key. For to simply reduce the subject to an image without connection, loses the link between corporation and visual signifier. Without that link, the viewer may travel off on an unintentional tangent, losing the purpose of connecting the image with the product, or company. At a time when the visual idea in print was exploding, Rand knew the importance of linking the visual image, though reduced to a basic symbol, with the core of its company. A good illustration of this concept is explained in the 1938 article by Ashley Havinden, “Visual Expression.” Havinden uses an example of a sock company named Pyramid socks. A pyramid is chosen as the logo for Pyramid socks, but since there is no direct link between socks and the pyramids, the mind wanders off to perhaps considering going to Egypt next holiday! (4)

Paul Rand understood the duality of the symbol. He was cognoiscent that a symbol in one culture could represent something completely different in another. Juxtaposition was key. Depending on context, for example, a circle could represent eternity, color it red and it may be interpreted as the Japanese flag. (5) His genius was in recognizing this, and using the design environment to its fullest.

In 1942 Paul Rand began to teach at Cooper Union. In 1946 he taught at Pratt Institute, and in 1956 began his long association with Yale University as a Professor of Graphic Design within the University’s graduate school. The synthesis of education and business savvy is a legacy Paul Rand has contributed to the field and history of graphic design.

END NOTES

(1)
“Design Pioneers: Paul Rand.” Communication Arts. 1999. Commarts Network. 24 Apr. 2005 .

(2)
Carter, Rob. American Typography Today. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1993.
(3)
Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. 3rd. Ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1998.
(4)
Ashley Havinden, “Visual Expression, 1938.” Looking Closer 3 Classic Writings on Graphic Design, ed. Michael Bierut, Jessica Helfand, Steven Heller and Rick Poynor (New York: Allworth Press, 1999) 67-74.
(5)
Carter 85.