Paul Rand: Father of Modern Graphic Design Essay

Our beliefs, time, money, and actions are all being fought over with design as the arsenal. The graphic designer learns how to participate in this fight through education, intuition, creativity, and technical skills. Though helpful, a formal education in design is not what is meant here. The education needed is more about understanding the previously mentioned rules we are working with. Intuition is required in order to know when it is appropriate to adjust or disregard these rules. Creativity is needed because redundancy will not break through the wall into the internal world. Technical skills are essential because poor craft reduces credibility. This idea of the world as an arena is a reoccurring theme in The Cheese Monkeys, and the importance of education, intuition, creativity, and technical skills have been further reinforced to us through the grading process and classroom discussions in Graphic Design

Rand writes about a previous period of time that is referred to as “The Unmentionable Times”.The quote, "They whisper many strange things, of the towers which rose to the sky, in those Unmentionable Times, and of the wagons which moved without horses, and of the lights which burned without flame” by Equality 7-2521, explains how Rand viewed the modern age. She describes skyscrapers, new-aged vehicles, and light bulbs. These are all things that exist in the new world. “The Unmentionable Times” also referred to America. When she was young Rand’s family moved out of the dangerous part of Russia and Rand eventually moved to America. Things such as the skyscraper were things that Rand discovered in America. Rand viewed America as a great and beautiful place. She was a believer in the “American Dream”. This most likely influenced her to base “The Unmentionable Times” on her experiences in America.

Paul Minnesota on July 18th 1933. He graduated high school from Colorado Springs. After he served in the army he went to an Art Center school. He went on to illustrating books and catalogues for corporations. He then launched Syd Mean Inc. He drew up designs for intercontinental hotels, Harwood Taylor & Associates, and Don Ghia. He expanded and designed the interior of a Manhattan restaurant. He moved to California and started working on projects like Star Trek, Blade Runner, Tron and a recent film, Elysium. He also worked with Sony, Honda and some Japanese films. He loves to do transportation design. He pays attention to detail within a scenario. His imagination, technique, and Sci-fi approach to his Illustrations easily captivates his audience. He is known as the "Visual Futurist;” a trademark that will sick with him for the rest of his

Some of the most iconic graphic design covers you have seen for your favorite movies and books, such as Jurassic Park, were created by Chip Kidd. Have you heard of the movie Watchmen? Wonder? Jaws? All of those covers were designed by Chip Kidd. Kidd has been working on graphic design for around 32 years but, it took him 16 years to sharpen his skills to get to the point where he is now, making 75 covers a year. He grew up in Shillington, Pennsylvania being extremely inspired and interested in American Pop Culture. Later in 1986, he attended Pennsylvania State University where he graduated with a degree in graphic design. Kidd is a book designer, author, editor, lecturer, musician but is best known as a graphic designer for his book covers.

The painting is colorful and stands out against a white background. The text has a simple black font that does not deviate attention from the vibrant painting. The cover art symbolizes the author’s style. Flack has a laser-sharp focus on her topic and rarely diverges from her message.

From a young age Ruscha was surrounded by cartoons, stamps, and comic strips which inspired him to pursue a career in commercial art. Throughout his years of grade school Ruscha was passionate about art, taking several classes centered around commercial art. Immediately after completing high school Ruscha uprooted his life and moved to L.A. Coming to Los Angeles at the young age of 18 Ruscha intended on working as commercial artist, drawing cartoons for Walt Disney. However, after he entered Chouinard Art Institute which taught art as a balance between fine and commercial he found himself drawn to fine contemporary art. He fell in love with the process of painting, he loved not knowing how his paintings were going to finish. Ruscha felt relieved as he said farewell to the constructive ways of commercial art and began to sincerely paint from his heart. Commercial art provided Ruscha with the means to move forward as an artist but it didn't offer the

Chip Kidd’s position as a graphic designer provided the most credibility. His perspective of creating

The history of graphic art and the cycle of politicization, depoliticization and then repoliticization span the late 19th century through and into the 21st century. Evolving from humble beginnings into the commercial behemoth it’s become to today this essay will explore graphic design’s evolution and the politics that affected this growing art movement during this influential timeline.

Paul Rand was a very artistic designer that knew how to speak through his graphic designs. He is well known for the best graphics representing some of the biggest companies, one of them being IBM. Today his legacy still lives and his graphics speaks for themselves on the side of buildings, television and on automobiles, UPS also being one of his major graphic designs. Rand influenced many other graphic designers , such as: Tom Geismar whom company is known for its work , mostly from Chase and PBS. Paul Rand brought to television what others didnt see nor understand. He taught them that designs could speak to an audience and tell a story that words couldnt. Also, showing them that a unique symbol to represent the company will be a plus for

Paul Rand was well-known to be making use of a wide variety of procedures or methods such as collage, typography, photography, and painting. He combined the elements to create visually distinctive modern image from design for magazine cover to a poster or even corporate logos. At Esquire and Apparel Arts Rand persistently worked as an art director for four years. During the early forties he created astounding covers for a magazine named Direction where he worked on Apparel Arts covers using

The world’s greatest influence on modern graphic design once said, “[graphic design] is not good design if it is irrelevant.” (Rand 9). Paul Rand passed away in 1996 at the age of 82 but his legacy will live on forever through current and future graphic designers. His work included corporate identities, posters, magazine spreads, book covers, and even wrote his own books. Rands writings and designs set a foundation of principles for the field that has been copied by a countless number of other designers since. The Graphic design industry has changed drastically from when he started until his retirement and Rand was a major factor of that change. Paul Rand is responsible for transforming advertising and corporate branding as well as

The constructivist movement has also influenced Rand’s work. This is evident from the use of space geometrically and colors. The colors; red, white and black were prominently used by Russian constructivist

In today’s art world there seems to be a large gap that separates fine art from commercial art. Often there is a disconnected coldness associated with those who work in communications art and produce art for clients. As if all emotion and feeling is stripped from commercial artwork merely because it was created with the intention of pleasing a client. Stefan Sagmeister bridges the gap in the art industry by redefining commercial design as a personal, emotional, and deep art. While Sagmeister’s work encompasses a vast spectrum of mediums such as, album covers, logos, installations, and posters it is his philosophy on design that

Graphic design started many years ago. Over time, graphic design skills changed, as well as the implementation of ideas. Different designers from around the world practiced design, and each one had their own way. Designers’ experiences helped them to do more modern work. Some of them brought new ideas to graphic design and developed it. There are many professional designers, but Herb Lubalin and Alexey Brodovitch deserve to be known in the history. They bring creative and modern ideas to the art deco movement.

Meredith Davis’s book “Graphic Design Theory” was published in September 2012 by Thames & Hudson. This book blends a study of historical thinking of design with contemporary / modern approach to it. It also suggests students to critically analyse their work and asks them to adopt the design theories to embellish their practical design work as it will help them construct better work. This book also helps in understanding the consumers and the history of Graphic Design and also talks about a range of theories and introduces a collection of concepts and sources for future use and reference. In this book, Meredith Davis talks about the relationship of visual representation to the contexts of design. It talks about focusing on the broad and long term aftereffects of design and not to design only for the moment and responding to prompt needs.