Things I learned from Paul Rand: 1 – Introduction
Very early in my career, I had an opportunity to work for the master designer, art director, teacher, writer, and artist, Paul Rand. During a period of time between 1994 and 1995, I got to spend a lot of time one-on-one with him at his home studio in Weston, Connecticut. It was both a challenging and rewarding experience all and all. I learned a lot from him, and I still sometimes hear his voice when I’m facing design problems. I’ve been thinking I should share some nuggets from this rather rare and memorable time.
Design Hero
By the time I was finishing up Graphic Design program at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), Paul Rand was already my design hero. One of the first designs I recognized was his logo for Steve Jobs‘ NeXT computers. His bold, often playful, meaningful, and thoughtful design, was something I aspired to. His writings were enlightening and encouraging to design teachers and students allover alike. I sometimes tried to emulate his style for my school assignments, like this one:
Yale Summer Program in Brissago
One of the nicest yet toughest typography teacher I ever had was German designer, Inge Druckrey. She recommended me to apply to the Yale Summer Program that was held in Brissago Switzerland, when I graduated RISD. At first, I didn’t think I had anything to do with an Ivy League school, but I soon found out Paul Rand, along with other Basel School of Design greats, was teaching there and became very interested. I applied and luckily made it into the class. Next thing, I was pulling an all-nighter in Southern Switzerland at a rented local elementary school, trying to pull together design assignments without a computer: with my hands, pencil, ruler, glue, papers, and knife. You learn a lot about your limitations and creativity when you don’t have your tools of convenience.
87 Goodhill Rd
My friend Robin was also in this class. She happened to live and run her own graphic design business quite close to where the Paul and Marion Rand lived, in Connecticut. Turns out, after our Switzerland program was over, Paul started to bug her often for computer assistance. (He was already around 80 years old at this time, and his computer skills were “limited.”) I happened to live and work not too far away in Providence, Rhode Island. When Robin was overloaded and couldn’t take on Paul’s urgent project one time, she contacted me and I took an Amtrak down to help them out for few days.
Next time, when Paul came to Providence to speak at RISD (he used to travel around different schools for seminars regularly), I went to see him where he asked me, “When are you coming over to work for me?” Being young and with very little to lose, I quit my job-at-the time, and immediately moved to Connecticut without much of a plan. Fortunately, he didn’t back away from his talk, Paul ended up buying a computer and hiring me full time. This became the beginning of a lot of one-on-ones with the master at his home office.