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Paul Rand Research Paper

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The history of graphic design, is filled with many different respected individuals. These individuals helped shape and evolve graphic design. Paul Rand is one such graphic designer, who helped change the art of graphic design. Paul Rand was born in 1914 in Brooklyn, New York. Rand attended the Pratt Institute in Manhattan. Rand was a very well know advertising artist by his early 20’s. Many of his best works in advertising came after World War II. Rand would turn to European advertisements, as an inspiration for his own pieces. Paul Rand was known for his contributions to page design, his advertisement pieces, and his creation of various corporate logos.
Prior to Paul Rand’s widely known success in corporate logos, he was well known for his …show more content…

Throughout his career, Rand created advertising posters and pages within various magazines. As discussed in the previous paragraph, Rand utilized Swiss style in many of his works. In addition to Swiss style, Rand was considered to be a “Modernist”. This was to say that Rand would attempt to break traditional aspects of design and advertising, in order to create something new for the audience. This is considered to be one of the most important aspects of Rand and his works. In Kyle Vanhemert’s article; Paul Rand, The Visionary Who Showed Us That Design Matters, the importance of his modernist creativity is discussed. In the article it states, “As one of his contemporaries later put it, Rand “brought ideas and intelligence to advertising where before him there was no semblance of thought” (Vanhemert 2). A great example of Paul Rand’s modernist designs, would be his 1946 Jacqueline Cochran Cosmetics Ad. In this ad we see the use of Swiss style in a way that had no been previously done in …show more content…

Rand would use his unique design styles to create corporate logos, that are still used today. In Anne Quito’s article, How to design an enduring logo: Lessons from IBM and Paul Rand, the concept of how Rand created the corporate logo for IBM is discussed. According to Quito, “To improve the mark’s legibility, he replaced the font Beton with a similar but stronger-looking typeface called City. Rand tooled with the shape of the letterforms too, he lengthened the serifs and made the stacked squares in the letter “B” larger” (Quito 3). The IBM logo was one of Rand’s best known corporate logos. This logo was simple enough to fit onto any product or advertisement, in way that would grab the consumer’s attention. The idea of the logo was to create a simple logo, that would be link the products to the logo. Rand’s works in corporate logos, changed this aspect of commercial identity. Companies today still seek to create logos that are simple, yet link the company to the logo. According to Quito, in creating these logos, Rand “was able to stretch the client’s imagination beyond the page” (Quito

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