Who was Paul Rand?
Paul Rand was a famous graphic design artist during the 1940's and well into the 1980's. He was one of the founders of the Swiss Style of graphic design and worked on many big logos and advertisements for large businesses like UPS, IBM and the ABC Television Station. He was educated at the Pratt Institute, Parson's School of Design, and the Art Students League and later went on to teach graphic design to students at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. His beginnings in design were not so prestigious, however. Born with the name Peretz Rosenbaum, Paul grew up in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York. His father, thinking art would not be able to support his son, made Paul attend Pratt Institute. Not to be dissuaded, Paul began to learn and teach himself design by reading the books of famous graphic artists such as Cassandre and Moholy-Nagy in Europe. He started out making stock images for a graphics syndicate, but his reputation kept growing. After developing an impressive portfolio and changing his name officially to Paul Rand, Paul began to garner international acclaim as his work changed from stock images to magazine covers, to corporation logos. He always requested artistic freedom in his designs, often settling for lesser pay in exchange for it. His work was the best around, however, as he was called "the greatest living graphic designer" by Steve Jobs just before his tragic death from cancer in a1996. Many of Paul's designs are still in use and his work has inspired many more graphic designers and will continue to inspire for many years to come.
Here is his concept design of the IBM logo:
Here, we have an advertisement he made for Vichy & Wessel:
Finally, we have an illustration of miners he created:
References:http://www.paul-rand.com
http://design.rit.edu/biographies/rand.html
http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/
I hope you like my random and impromptu information explosion. :D
