Monday, March 8, 2010

ROSIE Paul Rand Logo Design

Paul Rand was one of the most influential designers in the area of logo design in the last century. Many of his corporate logo designs, including logos for IBM, Westinghouse, ABC and UPS are still recognised and used today even several decades after they were fist designed.

Rand's influence in the area of logo design was immense. It goes as far as being said by some that he, "
singlehandedly convinced large businesses that design was a highly effective tool and was not to be ignored" if a company wanted to be successful.

In 1956 at age 42 Rand created the IBM logo, this was his first logo for a large multinational company. This logo has become one of Rands trademark logos, it was very successful and he was even able to update it in 1972 to the IBM logo we know today.

The sequence of images below shows the evolution of Rands IMB logo design. The top logo was IBM's original logo before Rand created the middle logo in 1956 then updated it in 1972.



In his Book 'Design, Form, and Chaos' Rand writes on his views of Logos.
"
A logo is a flag, a signature, an escutcheon, a street sign.
A logo does not sell (directly), it identifies.
A logo is rarely a description of a business.
A logo derives meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes,not the other way around.
A logo is less important than the product it signifies;
what it represents is more important than what it looks like."

See this link below for quotes and insight from Paul Rand about Logo design.


www.lifeclever.com/paul-rand-thoughts-and-despair-on-logo-design/

Rand went on to create many logos for large companies and continued to design well into the later years of his life. Below is a look at several of his other famous logs.



Westinghouse Logo still in use (Unsure of exact date it was created)




NeXT Logo created in1986 (with a rumoured price tag of $100 000)




Ups Logo (created in 1961) has been updated recently but still in similar form to Rands original design



abc logo created in 1961(also recently updated but is still almast exactly the same as the original)

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