Paul Rand – Graphic Design Essay, Research Paper

It is a hard task to pinpoint who and what inspired Paul Rand in his groundbreaking design. It is a much easier task however, to tell who was inspired by him. He must not only be remembered as the man who revolutionized our visual language, but also as the man who laid the groundwork for other art directors and designers to continue modernizing the field. “Because without the great Paul Rand to learn from, to emulate, even to try to surpass, there would have been no Bill Golden, no Herb Lubalin, no Lou Dorfsman, no Bill Bernbach, no Bob Gage, and no Creative Revolution (Heller, 6).”

Paul Rand was born Peretz Rosenbaum on August 15, 1914, in Brooklyn, NY. He and his twin brother Fishel, were raised in a strict Orthodox home by their father, Itzhak Yehuda (an immigrant from Poland), and their mother, Leah. His parents worked long hours at the neighborhood grocery store. The brothers attended a Brooklyn state school during the day, studied the Talmud at the local religious school (Yeshiva) in the afternoons, and helped their parents working at the store in between (Heller, 6).

Paul started his involvement in art early. By the age of three, Paul had begun copying pictures of attractive Palmolive models from the displays at his father’s store, even though in the Orthodox Religion, drawing the human figure is against the rules. He violated the religious boundaries as his drawings continued to develop into a form of an emotional outlet for him. He did not join the other neighborhood children in playing, but instead, stayed in a room and devoted his time to drawing. He was often scolded for that, as well as for constantly looking at comic books, he was told that “reading this (would) spoil (him); it (would) destroy (him) as a Jew (Heller, 6).”

While in elementary school, Paul created signs for events and painted a mural, which hung behind the faculty desk at the Public School 109 in East New York, which he attended. He claimed that he engaged in these activities to avoid involvement in the “not-so-interesting classes,” but it earned him the title of ”chief class artist.” At this time in his life, he drew in the realistic styles of American illustrators J.C. Lyendecker and Norman Rockwell. In his characteristic manner, he did not imitate them and try to achieve their skill, but went one step further and avoided the use of models or photographs, such as they did, but drew from memory, believing that “[an artist] had to sit down and do something without any reference (Heller, 10).”

Rand also recalled creating wallpaper, while still in elementary school. He said he did not have great difficulty creating the design, but he thought its only purpose could be decoration. At that point he defined designs as “abstract things without reference,” and thought of them as something less than realistic illustration (Heller, 14).

When Rand reached high school age, most of his classmates concentrated on preparing themselves for professions that would provide them with job security and guaranteed livable wages in the Depression era, but Rand’s heart was set on continuing with creating artwork, which unfortunately was not a very profitable profession at the time. His father would often warn him that art was no way to make a living. Nevertheless, he put that and his religious convictions aside and advanced him $25, which allowed Paul to enroll in night school art classes at the Pratt Institute. However, the condition for this agreement was that Paul was to continue to attend Harren High School during the day (Heller 14-18).

After four years he had earned both a general high school diploma and an art certificate from Pratt. Still, neither school provided him with enough stimulation. Even though Pratt Institute was an art school, its teachings were confined by convention. In the years to come, Rand criticized his Pratt teachers severely, claiming that they ignored the teaching of such masters as Matisse and Picasso, and that he “literally learned nothing at Pratt; or whatever little [he] learned, [he] learned by doing [him]self.” This conviction stayed with him for years to come, as he would always speak of how hard it is to find decent art education or art books and manuals. Somewhere at this point he also realized that if he wanted knowledge, he would have to go out of his way and look for it himself (www.aiga.com).

Part of Rand’s informal education took place while shopping at Macy’s department store in Manhattan with his mother in 1929. While she shopped, he would look around the Macy’s bookstore, and that’s where he found his first volume of Commercial Art, the leading British graphics art magazine. He said that “[he]’d never heard of Picasso or Modernism until reading about it here.” That same year he stumbled upon Gebrauchsgrafik, Germany’s advertising arts journal. From that moment on he collected every issue, which became the beginning of his expansive design library. In that very issue he learned of “Bauhaus master” Laszlo Maholy-Nagy, painter and poster designer Richard Lindner, and German trademark designer Valentin Ziatara. The magazine not only introduced Rand to modern-day design masters, but also brought to his attention the formal issues applicable to all forms of art, which he never learned about at school. This was when he discovered that “art and design were unified-a notion that forever changed his attitude and set him on the course that would lead him to reject forever pure illustration in favour of graphic design (Heller, 15).”

Whether it was because of his negative school experiences, his father’s pressure, or because of the scarceness of money growing up, Rand made the decision that he “was too practical to want to be a painter” very early on. Making money was a very important factor in his career choice, as he wanted to earn at least more than his parents did(www.aiga.com).

Still, this must have been a difficult decision to make, as he complained that his Pratt teachers encouraged the students to follow the footsteps of the likes of Michelangelo and Rembrandt, and that graphic design was rarely even mentioned (various).

In 1930, Rand read another article in Commercial Art, which heavily influenced his career philosophy. It was the translation of Jan Tschichold’s introduction to The New Typography, which introduced him to other modern designers, whose work he would not forget throughout his life: Piet Zwart, Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky, Max Burchartz, Ladislav Sutnar, Walter Dexel, Wilhelm Defke and Mohony-Nagy. Rand continued to embrace the principles he read about in The New Typography, including the preference of machine made over hand made type, asymmetry over symmetry, and most of all, functionality over ornament (Heller, 22).

In another attempt at self-education Rand often visited the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue. There he read through numerous art books, European design annuals, and printing and type journals. It was at the library where he learned about the work of Cubist-inspired advertising poster artists in France and England, A.M. Cassandre and E. McKnight Kauffer. In their work for department stores, shipping lines and railway companies he saw the correlation of imagination with functionality. It also made him realize that in Europe art was not hidden from the public eye and kept in museums, but rather on public display, a part of ordinary, everyday life. To Rand, commercial art was a way to promote this same kind of thing in the United States, to distribute and show art to the masses, to promote its presence in everyday life (Heller). He said once, in an interview with Michael Kroeger: “Art should be in your bedroom, in your kitchen, not just in museums (www.mkgraphic.com).”

I was also at the library where he found out about the design pedagogy of the Bauhaus, which aimed at “a universal design language in order to democratize the common objects of everyday life.” Bauhaus supporters intended to blur the line between the kind of art of accessible to different social classes, and make it a public commodity. This philosophy impressed him so much that he even excitedly announced to his mother that he intended to move to Germany to be a part of the movement. She quickly convinced him of the inconceivability of the idea, but the impression the Bauhaus left on him was permanent (Heller, 17).

In 1933, the year that the Germans closed down the Bauhaus, Rand began taking classes at the Art Students’ League in Manhattan. It was the same year that George Grosz, a founder member of the Berlin Dada group, escaped the Nazis and started teaching classes at the League, which Rand attended. Rand has since stated that it was a shaping time for him, that it was when he realized that “possessing drawing proficiency was the key to even the most abstract art.” He was so determined to fine-tune his rendering skills that he passionately and persistently drew from models in the League studios, at Parsons School of Design, and at a friend’s studio. By the simplistic nature of his designs one could think that he did not possess the ability to draw, but, in fact, he was a talented illustrator from an early age (www.aiga.com, Heller).

In 1934 he took his first professional part-time job as an illustrator for Metro Associated Services, a map and stock advertising supplier to newspapers and magazines. He was not especially proud of the “junk” he produced, but it provided him with the necessary graphic technique experience, and exposed him to the essential tricks of the trade (www.sirius.com).

Nevertheless, he was never satisfied doing mediocre work, and was always looking for ways to move up. He constantly seeked advice from and contact with designers he read about in trade magazine. The first designer he tried to speak to was F.G. Cooper, a well known illustrator and letterer working for Consolidated Edison Company. His effort was bluntly dismissed by Cooper, so he tried his luck with Lucian Bernhard, “one of Germany’s maestros – inventor in 1906 of the Sachplakat (an object poster with a minimalist, though often colorful, design, and a graphic representation of the product), […] proponent of graphic design that rejected superfluous decoration in favour of a stark prop of object”, and a master Rand greatly admired. Unfortunately, Bernhard was as unsupportive as F.G. Cooper, but as usual, that did not dissuade Rand. He recuperated quickly and began to admire the Secessionist style of Gustav Jensen, whose “elegant, classically inspired, moderne” style stood out from the Art Deco style of most of the design work of the time. Rand saw in Jensen the embodiment of the “integrated” artist and designer, and a model to follow. Jenzen, too, turned him down, but in a gentle way, explaining that he always worked alone (Heller, 17-20).

Rand kept in search of a master to work with, until he finally met Ervin Metzl, a typographer, poster and book cover designer. Metzl immediately recognized his talent, and helped him land freelance jobs from Young and Rubicam. “But Metzl’s most enduring contribution to Rand’s Career was an introduction to George Switzer, which resulted in an apprenticeship with the successful package and industrial designer, whom Rand noted was influenced by progressive French and German designers (Heller, 20).”

At this time, a new kind of designer was beginning to emerge. These “industrial designers,” as they called themselves, have managed to convince major American businesses, that redesigning the packages of their products and thus changing their image (so called “styling the goods”) was an essential part of claiming the market. And George Switzer ranked jut slightly below the recognized national leaders in the field, Norman Bel Geddes, Raymond Loewy, Henry Dreyfuss and Walter Dorwin Teague. So, working for Switzer finally set Rand on the right track. He was no longer working on pieces he was not proud of, but instead he was creating attractive packages and advertisements, in which he was finally able to implement the “less is more” theory. He was also able to accumulate an impressive portfolio, and even though the work in it was not yet revolutionary, it was original, skillful, and neat enough to stand out from the clutter of most designs of the day (various).

Rand was a great admirer of Paul Klee, and some of his ads included Klee-inspired drawings — used as symbols or icons, which was not a practice heard of at the time. By using white space and framing devices, he contributed to changing the “cluttered look of advertising that had held sway since the turn of the century (www.sirius.com).”

Even so, Rand was still convinced that his designs were not enough to guarantee him a future, and to make him stand out above the rest. In an era when advertising was dominated by America’s Protestant class, and most high-end job openings came with an unspoken “Jews need apply” subtitle, he did not want to become a part of the sea of advertising employees who never made it past the production department. So Peretz Rosenbaum became Paul Rand. “[F]our letters here, for letters there, would create a nice symbol (Heller, 20).”

Thanks to Switzer he acquired a freelance position at Apparel Arts, a men’s fashion magazine, where once again proved him talent by transforming the usual layouts into impressive, dynamic arrangements, by transforming lifeless, dull still-lives into essential elements of the page, by using them to add editorial value to the magazine, instead of using them as unnoticeable backgrounds. This accomplishment earned him a full time position at Esquire, where he was shortly offered a position as an art director. He turned the position down, not because he was intimidated, but because he realized he still had a lot to learn before he could make himself responsible for the whole department, and before he could command other’s respect (www.aiga.com).

Rand constantly strived to acquire and master as many technical skills as possible, from layout, through photography, to airbrushing. He would not admit it if he’d never touched a medium before, he would instead devote hours to learning it. It was exactly this “meticulous attention to detail [and his will to succeed] that gave him design fluency and total command over the material (Heller, 21),” that made the Esquire executives so intent on promoting him to art director. He finally felt he had learned a sufficient amount and accepted the position a year later. “He was proud of his stamina, and his devotion to work remained with him throughout his life (Heller, 22).”

At the time there was not yet a characteristic Paul Rand look, but a particular and recognizable formal terminology was already visible in his work for both Apparel Arts and Esquire. “His work did not all look the same, but somehow he had the ability, as an artist and designer, to leave his own personal signature on everything he did (www.aiga.com).” His cover designs relied on the audience’s intelligence; they conveyed a “rebus-like” message either about the content of the issue or the season of the year, left for the viewer to decipher. At first, the editors were afraid that his ideas might be too radical and that the public might not be ready for them, but he earned their trust, and they did not further argue with his vision. As there was no use arguing; Rand stood by his concepts to the end (various).

When asked why he adhered to his ideas so strictly, Rand reasoned that American designers were all too fond of clich?s, and went on to say that the difference between him and most other designers at the time was that:

I was not in sync with convention because I was aware of what was going on in Europe at the time. I was familiar with the Germans and the kind of work they were doing – and it was the best work that anybody had done. And it was not done in this country at all… Can you think of anybody before 1920 who did anything that was remotely abstract in this country in terms of graphic design (Heller, 25)?

In all fairness, it must be said that he was not the only American breaking the clich? traditions of American graphic design. By the late 1930s, emigrants escaping the Nazis were bringing with them examples of Dada, Constructivism and the Bauhaus, and some American designers were beginning to let the influence get through to them and experiment on their own as well. To note just a few examples, Lester Beall offered an approach of both Cubist and Dada aesthetics, combining photographic elements with jarring typefaces, in his posters and advertisements, and Alvin Lustig incorporated form and space elements of Surrealism and Dada into his book jackets in the 1940s. Still, Paul Rand was one of the few pioneers of the inventive approach (Heller, 26).

He always remembered that function stood above form. He did not aim at creating beautiful magazines, advertisements and packages for the pure visual benefit. He realized that design was problem solving, finding the appropriate variables to fit the equation with a given result. Whether this result was selling the product or simply attracting the public’s attention, it was the ultimate goal. He once said about one of his covers that it ”pinpoints the distinction between abstract design without content and abstract design with content. You can be a great manipulator of form, but if the solution is not apt, it’s for the birds (www.commarts.com).”

In 1938 Rand accepted a job for Direction, a left wing, anti-nazi publication. Economy was the motivation for many of Rand’s creative solutions while working for Direction. He shot his own photography, and used a handwritten scrawl instead of using costly typesetting. In many of the simple covers he designed for this journal he proved that minimal lines could evoke maximum emotion. They were a great example of the recurrence of certain formal visual elements in Rand’s work: the rod and ball, the cut shape, and the painterly composition of designs. They showed how “Rand had gotten great mileage out of a few elements(www.aiga.com)”. He usually downplayed their originality, saying they were heavily influenced by Picasso and Surrealism, and avant-garde arts magazines Verve and Minotaure. “When I was doing the covers for Direction, I was trying to compete with the Bauhaus, not with Norman Rockwell. I was trying to compete with Van Doesberg and Leger and Picasso. ‘Compete’ is not the right word. I was trying to do it in the spirit (Rand).”

“Homage or not, the Direction covers marked the beginning of Rand’s mature visual persona (Heller, 31).”

By the time Rand was twenty-seven, the press had recognized him as the one responsible for incorporating European avant-garde into American design. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who had left Nazi Germany to found the new Bauhaus in Chicago, described Rand’s design as the essence of Modernism in America:

Among these young Americans it seems to me that Paul Rand is one of the best and most capable … He is a painter, lecturer, industrial designer, [and] advertising artist who draws his knowledge and creativeness from the resources of this country. He is an idealist and realist, using the language of the poet and businessman. He thinks in terms of need and function. He is able to analyse his problems but his fantasy is boundless (Heller, 31).”

Rand continued to experiment and venture into unknown territory, always putting lessons he learned about it international magazines into practice, not in “an academic hothouse” as it is mostly done today, but while working for mainstream clients.

[H]e found that an unclouded, forward-looking view was not enough. He was one of those personalities who succeeded, on account of their enquiring spirit, representational talent and art-historical education, in creating a link between European-based design culture and a new formal language (Heller, 7).

He was one of a few American designers to be able to claim being influential in brining what was called the “New Typography – the rejection of archaic and sentimental type and layout treatments – to the United States (www.sirius.com).”

When Paul Rand died on November 26, 1996 at the age of eighty-two, his career had spanned sixty years, three generations, and several chapters in the history of design. In the last years of his life he deservingly enjoyed his status as “the grand old man of graphic design (www.aiga.com).” The logos he designed for Westinghouse, United Parcel Service, ABC, IBM and Cummins Engine in the sixties and seventies are in use to this day. His work still stands fresh, tens of years later it lives up to the ever-increasing visual standards of the day (www.sirius.com).

Paul Rand was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972 (design.rit.edu).

Bibliography

A Master’s Peaks

http://www.dlsdesign.com/rndtxt1.htm

AIGA – Boston: 1.28.99 Paul Rand: A Designer’s Life

http://www.aiga.com/boston/pages/rand/rand.html

Communication Arts: Paul Rand http://www.commarts.com/creative/rand

Design Archive Online: Paul Rand http://design.rit.edu/Design/Biographies/rand.html

Heller, Steven, Paul Rand, Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1999

Paul Rand Inc

http://www.sirius.com/~pmimaki/rand/rand.html

Paul Rand: Graphic Designer, interview by Michael Kroeger

http://www.mkgraphic.com/paulrand.html

Rand, Paul, Design, Form, and Chaos, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1993