Who is Paul Rand?
Paul Rand is an American Graphic designer. He lived from August 15, 1914 to November 26, 1996 and was known for his simplistic designs. He pioneered new theories and brought new outlooks to the corporate world creating many well known corporate identities. Helping in the invention of the Swiss style, Paul Rand made quite a mark in the design world. Still to this day places such as IBM, ABC, and UPS are still using his graphics.
For Rand, it all started out with painting signs for his dad's grocery store. His father figured that there was no money in what his son’s talent; little did he know he would one day be such a famous designer who set new standards in design. Rand was mostly self-taught, which helped him bring new outlooks to design and helped him to create new theories of design. He showed that graphics didn't have to be overkill and could be simple. Another graphic designer, Louis Danziger, accredited Rand with singlehandedly convincing businesses that design was a useful tool.
Paul Rand was a master in typography, painting, and photography. However his typography was what made him most famous. He was one of the first to start unifying letters it fonts which brought appeal to his work. He concentrated on balance, uniformity, and equilibrium of spacing of each letter. Eventually he went through a “rebellious” stage which is where his Swiss style appeared. He started incorporating Swiss graphics. He broke away from the conservative American style and started experimenting with more of a cubism/de stijl style. This new style had never been seen before and opened up many of new ideas for graphic design.
It is now as I am an upcoming graphic designer that I have to pay my respects to Paul Rand for setting a standard and pioneering the way for graphic design. Without Paul Rand there definitely would not be the large need for graphic designers as there is today.
www.paul-rand.com
www.logoblog.org/wordpress/paul-rand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rand
