The genius of Paul Rand... And my attempt to interpret it.

      Often considered the “American Modernist,” Paul Rand has made a name for himself as an originator of the Swiss Modern Style.  His work in corporate identity and logo design has been embedded in American history, in familiar places like ABC, IBM and UPS.  Simplicity, in it’s simplest form, is what drove the success of American designer, Paul Rand.

Rand was born Peretz Rosenbaum on August 15, 1914 in Brooklyn, New York.  He started making signs and advertisements for local businesses at a young age.  During high school, Rand took night classes at the Pratt Institute (1929-1932).  This offered him little stimulation, as was the case while studying at the Parsons School of Design (1932-1933) and the Art Students League (1933-1934).  He considered himself to be, all in all, a self-taught designer.

      Rand began his career with a part-time position making stock images for syndicate that made graphics for magazines and newspapers.  It was during this time that he amassed an impressive portfolio, and also changed his name.  He wanted to disguise the Jewish name Peretz Rosenbaum, and ultimately Paul Rand (having four letters next to four letters) made a nice symbol.

Rand is most known for his corporate identities.  His love and knowledge of modernism made it easy for him to sell his designs to companies.  To him, modernism meant clarity, and clarity was essential to his designs; he often abbreviated the companies name using one very clear sans serif font and accompanied it with one simple shape.

I personally love Rands simplistic style.  I am one who loves modernist design in general, but I consider Rand to be a master.  The clarity of his designs is uncanny, as is the originality.  It is incredible how unique an identity can be obtained by just a few simple shapes.  No one could possibly mistake the ABC logo, or the IBM logo, or the Cummins logo… even though they are all comprised of no more than a few vague elements.  His designs truly are ingenious.

If you are unfamiliar with Rand, or his work, or want to read a better written and more in-depth biography on him, please CLICK HERE.

My class was tasked to select an influential designer or illustrator, write a short report about them, and create a work in their style.  You've just read my report, and now I will show you my process for interpreting the genius of Paul Rand.

I decided to design a Rand-style logo (Rand's strongest skill) for the mill I worked for this last summer; Old Standard Wood.  We basically turned trees into guitars, and it was one of the greatest, most challenging jobs I've ever had.  If you ever want a SUPER quality guitar, contact these people.  The amount of hard work and care that goes into the craft at Old Standard Wood, is absolutely incalculable.  Now that I've finished my shout out, I'll show you how I started the logo.

I noticed Rand using a LOT of circles in his designs, so that's basically where I started:

Rand likes to abbreviate the names of his clients when working with corporate identities, so I did that.  I wanted the nature of the business to be apparent in the logo, though, since OSW hardly says anything about making guitars.  I solved this by creating the "treetar."

I decided this was not designerly enough, so I made this alternative:

I offset the treetar, and used the "O" as the sound hole.

The problem as this version developed... was that it started looking nothing like a Paul Rand design.  Above, you can see I used Garamond, which is not even a modernist typeface.  The offset treetar also created some unsightly negative spaces, which are NEVER found in a Rand design.  Every part of his designs are carefully calculated and deliberate.  So I wiped the treetar and went even more basic:

I kept the idea of the sound hole "O" and tried to merely suggest the shape of a guitar using a single line. But once again, I was unhappy with the typeface, and the shape created by the edge of the guitar and the edge of the circle.  I decided to go even MORE basic with my symbol:

I switched my typeface to Helvetica, the obvious champion of all modernist typefaces.  Instead of a guitar, I transformed my circle into the sound hole and tightened up some strings over it.  This is the final version of the logo, and I am happy with it.  Happy, not ecstatic.  I believe the symbolism is not as obvious as I would like it to be, but I don't mind my audience searching for it a bit.  I think the simplicity and clarity of this design rings in harmony with that of the master Rand, and for that I am satisfied.