Paul Rand

In class a couple weeks ago, our teacher made us each pull a name from an envelope. Those slips of paper had the names of various graphic designers on them. Our newest ongoing assignment is to create a magazine spread for whichever designer we got.

I pulled Paul Rand. He's the one who designed the logos for UPS, IBM, ABC, and Enron (to name a few). It was a lucky draw, because I feel like I "get" Rand's work. It's modernist, simple, and witty.

Paul Rand passed away in 1996, but remains one of America's biggest names in graphic design. What I didn't know about him until my research this week, was that he designed a few children's books with his wife, Ann Rand. As an illustrator (who has been focused largely on the children's market in the past few years) this interested me. Take a look at some of his book covers:


The above cover is the french translation for Rand's book, I Know a Lot of Things. I mean, how adorable! That book (in any language) seems to be a collector's item now. The starting prices that I saw online were $40 and up.


The top two images are covers, and the lower images is a spread from one of the books. I think it's just gorgeous.

You know, it's funny...until this Typography class I didn't think about the people behind the designs we see every day. I guess in my mind, there were big corporations collaborating together and churning out logos and type like factories. I never thought of individual designers sitting behind their desks, brainstorming over letterforms and what way would best brand a company. Now I not only understand that many logos can be attributed to specific designers, like Rand, but I am starting to recognize and appreciate individuals and their work. It's sort of like a door opened up and I've discovered there's a whole other wing in this house that I haven't explored.

I still don't know if I'll ever be a good designer, myself (I still very much have an illustrator's brain). But I do feel like I'm learning and progressing by leaps and bounds. We'll see how I feel after the crit on my brochure layout tonight. I honestly have NO IDEA if it's good or bad. Usually I have some sort of inkling before class. Today? Nothing. I'm sure you'll hear about it either way. In the meantime, go look up Paul Rand online. You'd be surprised how many well-known easily recognizable logos are attributed to him.