PORTFOLIO Letterhead Set
Paul Rand
Paul Rand: PORTFOLIO. N. P. [Cincinnati: Zebra Press, 1950]. Letterhead, Mailing Envelope and Business Reply Card designed by Paul Rand. 7.25 x 10.25 letterhead printed in 2-colors [match red and green] on laid paper with manufacturers' watermark; no. 9 side seam envelope printed in match green; Business Reply Card printed in 2-colors [match red and green] on both sides. Letterhead lightly worn from handling. Envelope with glue-stain bleed through to verso. BRC mildly age-toned. Overall very good or better. Regardless of condition, a singular set.
Three pieces published in advance of the first issue of Zachary and Brodovitch's 'Portfolio.' An interesting glimpse into the pre-production development of the legendary magazine.
In Steven Heller mononograph PAUL RAND [Phaidon, 1999], the author quotes Frank Zachary as saying that Rand designed the most beautiful letterhead and promotional brochure that he had ever seen (which are now lost) . . . [p. 90]
A rare, perhaps singular, piece of American Graphic Design history.
Alexey Brodovitch (1898-1971) is a legend in graphic design: during his 25-year tenure as art director of Harper's Bazaar, he exerted tremendous influence on the direction of design and photography. A passionate teacher of graphic design, advocate of photography and collaborator with many prominent photographers, Brodovitch is often credited with having a major influence on the acceptance of European modernism in America. 'Portfolio' is considered Brodovitch's greatest achievement-- although short-lived, the magazine captured the dynamic work of some of his emerging star students from his famous Design Laboratory, including Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Art Kane.
The list of contents and contributors for Portfolio magazine reads like a guest list at some great event hosted by an enlightened art patron. "Producing a magazine is not unlike giving a party -- the editor-in-chief has to be a good master of ceremonies." according to Frank Zachary.
Like Brodovitch, Zachary likened publication design to cinematography, where the pacing of visual sequences plays an important role. Art directing and editing are one and the same thing -- you have to keep your eye on both the visual and verbal narration line. "You have to tell two stories, one in words, one in pictures, completely separate -- but like railroad track, leading to the same place." Zachary recounted to Martin Pedersen in Graphis Publications [Zurich, Graphis Press Corp., 1992].
"Paul didn't think much of magazine design, and he himself was incapable of it," according to Zachary. "when I was editing 'Portfolio' I asked Paul to do something in the way of a format, and he just couldn't do it."
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a pioneer typographer, photographer, and designer of the modern movement and a master at the Bauhaus in Weimar, may have come closest to defining the Rand style when he said Paul was "an idealist and a realist using the language of the poet and the businessman. He thinks in terms of need and function. He is able to analyze his problems, but his fantasy is boundless."
If the word legend has any meaning in the graphic arts and if the term legendary can be applied with accuracy to the career of any designer, it can certainly be applied to Paul Rand (1914-1996). In 1951, the legend was already firmly in place. By then Paul had completed his first career as a designer of media promotion at Esquire-Coronet -- and as an outstanding cover designer for Apparel Arts and Directions. He was well along on a second career as an advertising designer at the William Weintraub agency which he had joined as art director at its founding. Paul Rand's book, Thoughts on Design, with reproductions of almost one hundred of his designs and some of the best words yet written on graphic design, had been published four years earlier‹a publishing event that cemented his international reputation and identified him as a designer of influence from Zurich to Tokyo.
The chronology of Paul Rand's design experience has paralleled the development of the modern design movement. Paul Rand's first career in media promotion and cover design ran from 1937 to 1941, his second career in advertising design ran from 1941 to 1954, and his third career in corporate identification began in 1954. Paralleling these three careers there has been a consuming interest in design education and Paul Rand's fourth career as an educator started at Cooper Union in 1942. He taught at Pratt Institute in 1946 and in 1956 he accepted a post at Yale University's graduate school of design where he held the title of Professor of Graphic Design.
In 1937 Paul launched his first career at Esquire. Although he was only occasionally involved in the editorial layout of that magazine, he designed material on its behalf and turned out a spectacular series of covers for Apparel Arts, a quarterly published in conjunction with Esquire. In spite of a schedule that paid no heed to regular working hours or minimum wage scales, he managed in these crucial years to find time to design an impressive array of covers for other magazines, particularly Directions. From 1938 on his work was a regular feature of the exhibitions of the Art Directors Club.
Most contemporary designers are aware of Paul Rand's successful and compelling contributions to advertising design. What is not well known is the significant role he played in setting the pattern for future approaches to the advertising concept. Paul was probably the first of a long and distinguished line of art directors to work with and appreciate the unique talent of William Bernbach. Paul described his first meeting with Bernbach as "akin to Columbus discovering America," and went on to say, "This was my first encounter with a copywriter who understood visual ideas and who didn?t come in with a yellow copy pad and a preconceived notion of what the layout should look like."
Paul spent fourteen years in advertising where he demonstrated the importance of the art director in advertising and helped break the isolation that once surrounded the art department. The final thought of his Thoughts on Design is worth repeating: "Even if it is true that commonplace advertising and exhibitions of bad taste are indicative of the mental capacity of the man in the street, the opposing argument is equally valid. Bromidic advertising catering to that bad taste merely perpetuates that mediocrity and denies him one of the most easily accessible means of aesthetic development."
In 1954 when Paul Rand decided that for him Madison Avenue was no longer a two-way street and he resigned from the Weintraub agency, he was cited as one of the ten best art directors by the Museum of Modern Art. This was the same year in which he received the gold medal from the Art Directors Club for his Morse Code advertisement addressed to David Sarnoff of RCA.