Monday 7 December 2009

latest essay

please read my essay and let me now how i could improve it ! (pics coming soon)

Paul Rand

Paul Rand (Peretz Rosenbaum) was born in Brooklyn, New York in August the 14 1914, he was a Graphic designer that was best known for his corporate logo designs.
He got in to design at a very young age, painting signs for his father’s grocery store as well as for school events. Rand’s father did not believe art could provide his son with a sufficient livelihood, and so he required Paul to attend Manhattan’s Harren High School while taking night classes at the Pratt Institute, Rand was by-and-large “self-taught as a designer, learning about the works of Cassandre and Moholy-Nagy from European magazines such as Gebrauchsgraphik.”

His career began with humble assignments, starting with a part-time position creating stock images for a syndicate that supplied graphics to various newspapers and magazines. Between his class assignments and his work, Rand was able to amass a fairly large portfolio, largely influenced by the German advertising style Sachplakat (object poster) as well as the works of Gustav Jensen. It was around this time that he decided to camouflage and abbreviate the overtly Jewish identity telegraphed by ‘Peretz Rosenbaum,’ shortening his forename to ‘Paul’ and taking ‘Rand’ from an uncle to form his new surname. Morris Wyszogrod, a friend and associate of Rand, noted that “he figured that ‘Paul Rand,’ four letters here, four letters there, would create a nice symbol. So he became Paul Rand." Roy R. Behrens notes the importance of this new title: “Rand’s new persona, which served as the brand name for his many accomplishments, was the first corporate identity he created, and it may also eventually prove to be the most enduring."Indeed, Rand was rapidly moving into the forefront of his profession. In his early twenties he was producing work that began to garner international acclaim, notably his designs on the covers of Direction magazine, which Rand produced for no fee in exchange for full artistic freedom. Among the accolades Rand received were those of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy:

The reputation Rand so rapidly amassed in his prodigious twenties never dissipated; rather, it only managed to increase through the years as the designer’s influential works and writings firmly established him as the éminence grise of his profession.

Although Rand was most famous for the corporate logos he created in the 1950s and 1960s, his early work in page design was the initial source of his reputation. In 1936, Rand was given the job of setting the page layout for an Apparel Arts magazine anniversary issue. “His remarkable talent for
transforming mundane photographs into dynamic compositions, which gave editorial weight to the page” earned Rand a full-time job, as well as an offer to take over as art director for the Esquire-Coronet magazines. Initially, Rand refused this offer, claiming that he was not yet at the level the job required, but a year later he decided to go ahead with it, taking over responsibility for Esquire’s fashion pages at the young age of twenty-three.

The cover art for Direction magazine proved to be an important step in the development of the “Paul Rand look” that was not as yet fully developed. The December 1940 cover, which uses barbed wire to present the magazine as both a war-torn gift and a crucifix, is indicative of the artistic freedom Rand enjoyed at Direction; in Thoughts on Design Rand notes that it “is significant that the crucifix, aside from its religious implications, is a demonstration of pure plastic form as well a perfect union of the aggressive vertical (male) and the passive horizontal (female)." In ways such as this, Rand was experimenting with the introduction of themes normally found in the “high arts” into his new graphic design, further advancing his life-long goal of bridging the gap between his profession and that of Europe’s modernist.

The IBM was another Logo that Rand designed, it was the one that made him very famous for. The first design was the normal IBM logo and he was asked to improve it.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta4ef1xBeMA)
The final out come is the bottom picture, you can see with the 3 IBM logos that the bottom one stands out more than the rest, what Paul Rand simply did was to reduce the 13 blue lines to 8, where its more blue it stands out more and there for stands out more to people. looking at the logos you can really see the changes but in todays design, it wouldn’t stand out with the bright coloured, heavy designs we have today. the first IBM logo was designed in 1956, when you look at the design below you can see there is a big difference between the 2 and thats Paul Rand’s design and then he improved it more by making it stand out more, changing the 13 blue lines to 8 blue lines.

Another logo he redesigned was the Harcourt brace and Company in 1957, Witch is a company that sells fiction and nonfiction books to adults and children. This logo is very simple but affective for the era, in this time there technology was not as advance as now, so things would of been simple, if you look at the design now you can see how the logo had changed and how technology has changed and improved, because of this the designs have got random and wacky.

This logo that Paul Rand also designed was colorforms in 1959, witch is a company that designs “paper toys” they describe the toys to be “sheet images and shapes that can be applied to a slick cardboard background board, much like placing paper dolls against a paper backdrop” so when you look at the logo (right image) you can tell where he got his idea from when you look at the toys (left image). this logo looks really inventive and it really suits the age rang, its also got really bright colours that would shout if it was in a shop window or on the wall.

United percale service (UPS)1961, This packaging delivery company logo that Rand designed, as you can see the design is very simple, its gone for a shield shape, its got a bow on top, shouting that its a packaging company, its also very plain saying that it would of been an early company just starting, with not a lot of money. where you look at the current logo, you can see that its more presentable and even looks 3D , the colours also stand out but still using the brown colours from the brown packaging colours, you can also see that they have changed the type face to something bolder.

The American Broadcasting corporation (abc) 1962, the bigger logo is the logo designed in 1962 by Paul Rand. This simple logo is really affective i like the way the font fits in with the roundness of the circle, you can also see where they have improved it (smaller image) they basically have made it 3D and shinny, i actually prefer it as it was before, i like the simple look it looks like the letters have been cut out and your left with a stencil.
i think the current logo (smaller image) is slightly over worked with the lighting, they have tried to add shading and reflections in the design to make the design come to
live and look 3D

NeXT computer, Rand designed this logo in 1986, this logo was created for a for a computer company, i rally like the 3D affect with this design, i like the bright colours in the text i also like the simple font its very affective. This logo is the only one that hasn’t been improved to another logo, this logo has stayed the same since it was designed in 1986.

Hub TV, 1995, looking at this logo, i really don’t no what paul rand was trying to come up with, i like the type face but that its it, i think the was he has put it in a random circle and random colour for the text is very unprofessional.

The NeXT computer logo and Hub TV both of these 2 are very similar you can see that in between the time of this logos (9 years) they are very similar and Paul Rand must of hit a point where he liked this style.

When you get to his final piece of work you can see that his style changes and he goes back to dull colours
Doug Evans + partners, this was the last one designed before he died in 1996 of cancer, i really like the was its in another letter, looking at this one i think this is the most advance graphical one out of all of them, the way the words curve round with the ‘E’ i also like the colours but they might be a bit dark.

Paul didn’t just design logos for companies he also design posters, packaging, books, advertising and many more! http://www.paul-rand.com/gallery.shtml
you can really see from his website that he was interested in his work and believed in it, i think for him to do graphic design was more like a hobby rather than a job, his work was based on illustration and graphics so he also experimented. i also looked on youtube about him, he was a man that new all about graphics and it was sad to read that he died of cancer in 1996
He is buried in Beth El Cemetery in Norwalk, Connecticut.

The main wesites i looked at where

http://www.paul-rand.com/gallery.shtml

http://www.paul-rand.com/gallery.shtml

http://www.logodesignlove.com/all-about-paul-rand

http://www.logodesignlove.com/all-about-paul-rand

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