Paul Rand
...Interview -- Wednesday 08 February 1995 -- 09:00 am
I studied with Paul Rand in Brissago, Switzerland in the summer of 1981. I was happy to talk with him briefly during his visit to Arizona State University in early February 1995. The topic were varied but we came back to design and an article I was working on at the time called Graphic Design Education Fundamentals.
Part of these talks had to do with graphic design, design philosophy and design education. The following excerpts are from these meetings.
(Paul and Marion Rand, and Mookesh Patel enter my office. The location is in the School of Art at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona)
Paul Rand: This little girl that came to see me on the FedEx, all she had to do is make this blue, so she could see it. Here they had the opportunity to eliminate one vertical and they did not. What would they do with all one color, there is no reason to split this, also there is a lot of letters. So they could use condensed letters and make it a lot more compact. Other than that it is great. It is very easy to make something good out of this but this ain't good.
Michael Kroeger: They have the F jammed into the lower case e.
Rand: That is not so bad. Then you have these styles mixed, which is ridiculous. You do not mix type faces. It's stupid. That is mannerism, trendy stuff, doing it because someone else is doing it. The only reason to do it.
Am I being recorded?
Kroeger: You're on, you are going to be famous.
I brought in a couple of the books that you recommended.
Rand: Oh yes, this book is familiar.
Kroeger: I started reading the first chapter (John Dewey -- Art as Experience, Perigee Books, New York, 1934, 1980).
Rand: You did? That is pretty good? How long did it take?
Kroeger: Well a couple of pages each night. It doesn't go real fast. Maybe there is something in there that we could bring up...
View Full Essay
