What is Good?: Paul Rand

In Logo design, Paul Rand was the master. Rand took the modern Swiss approach of stern graphic simplicity and sans-serif fonts, and gave it a smile, Rand had a knack of giving faceless corporations a personality, often by reducing their existing logos to simple humanistic elements, and then carrying the clarity and personality through to packaging, annual reports and other material.

He added a package with a bow to the shield of United Parcels Service (UPS); he turned the antique 'W' of Westinghouse into what looked like a cartoon crown and he lightened and harmonized the logo of computer giant IMB by 'striping' the thick and heavy letter forms. Rand's model of making the simple memorable and timeless gave all future logo designers a yardstick with which to measure their efforts.