Things I learned from Paul Rand: 15 – Signature

Paul Rand used to tell me “you should always sign your work.”

A Signature Signature

Paul certainly made sure all of his work had his signature. Born as Peretz Rosenbaum, I would be surprised if the concern about how good his signature looked didn’t matter when he changed his name to Paul Rand. Because aesthetics pretty much meant everything to him.

Regardless, his signature looked great, and he got plenty of miles from it. The same story he told me later was also quoted by Steven Heller back in 1987:

“I always insisted on signing my work. I remember being called into Bill’s [Weintraub] office one day. There was the first Dubonnet ad I signed, and he wanted me to take my name out so that the glow would not be on me – it would be on the agency. I said, “Bill, this is your agency; you take my name off, and you can take it off your register, too – I’m getting out.” And he didn’t take it off.”

Credit Where Credit is Due

Aside from publicity he got for himself from making it known his work was definitely done by him, I think he also believed strongly in artists being recognized for their art. It is of my opinion that he felt great artists were widely underappreciated in our commerce-driven world; and to him, there was almost no difference between fine artists and commercial artists.

Here are just few examples of him making sure his signature was printed with his work.