The graphic designer and ad man set the benchmark for corporate branding, but this show could benefit from more context about his influences
When graphic designer Louis Danziger met art director Helmut Krone at Esquire in 1948, Krone was in the shadow of a somewhat intractable giant. Danziger’s Aiga medal for design was still decades away; Krone was only 29, yet to make it big with Volkswagen’s Think Small campaign. “If you want to be as good as Rand,” Danziger advised his young colleague, “don’t look at Rand; look at what Rand looks at.”
“Rand” was, of course, Paul Rand: graphic designer, evangelical modernist, self-proclaimed autodidact, native New Yorker, writer and teacher. His work combined radical boldness with formal asceticism, synthesizing image and language in smart, sharp and instantly memorable iconographic forms. His corporate branding set benchmarks for impact and efficacy, most notably the eight-bar IBM logo (1972) and black ABC circle with white Herbert Bayer-like font (1962), both of which are still in use.
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