Paul Rand Quotes & Sayings

Don't try to be original; just try to be good. — Paul Rand

So that is the design process or the creative process. Start with a problem, forget the problem, the problem reveals itself or the solution reveals itself and then you reevaulate it. This is what you are doing all the time. — Paul Rand

Artistic tricks divert from the effect that an artist endeavors to produce, and even excellent elements such as bullets, arrows, brackets, ornate initials, are at best superficial ornamentation unless logically employed. — Paul Rand

I was too practical to want to be a painter. — Paul Rand

Good design doesn't date. Bad design does. — Paul Rand

In essence, it is not what it looks like but what it does that defines a symbol. — Paul Rand

The reason I always insisted on signing my work was not to be subordinate to anyone. — Paul Rand

There's a certain kind of research you have to listen to - the factual stuff, not opinion. Facts are facts. Sugar is sweet - it's not a matter of opinion. It just is. — Paul Rand

A style is the consequence of recurrent habits, restraints, or rules invented or inherited, written or overheard, intuitive or preconceived. — Paul Rand

The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes threatening, the old reassuring. — Paul Rand

Everything is design. Everything! — Paul Rand

I haven't changed my mind about modernism from the first day I ever did it ... It means integrity; it means honesty; it means the absence of sentimentality and the absence of nostalgia; it means simplicity; it means clarity. That's what modernism means to me. — Paul Rand

Ideas do not need to be esoteric to be original or exciting. — Paul Rand

Graphic Design, which fulfills aesthetic needs, complies with the laws of form and exigencies of two-dimensional space; which speaks in semiotics, sans-serifs, and geometrics; which abstracts, transforms, translates, rotates, dilates, repeats, mirrors, groups, and regroups, is not good design if it is irrelevant. — Paul Rand

Providing, meaning to a mass of unrelated needs, ideas, words and pictures - it is the designer's job to select and fit this material together and make it interesting. — Paul Rand

The artist is a collector of things imaginary or real. He accumulates things with the same enthusiasm that a little boy stuffs his pockets. The scrap heap and the museum are embraced with equal curiosity. He takes snapshots, makes notes and records impressions on tablecloths or newspapers, on backs of envelopes or matchbooks. Why one thing and not another is part of the mystery, but he is omnivorous. — Paul Rand

Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations. — Paul Rand

I would say that an understanding of man's intrinsic needs, and of the necessity to search for a climate in which those needs could be realized, is fundamental to the education of the designer. — Paul Rand

Any system that sees aesthetics as irrelevant, that separates the artist from his product, that fragments the work of the individual, or creates by committee, or makes mincemeat of the creative process will, in the long run, diminish not only the product but the maker as well. — Paul Rand

You will learn most things by looking, but reading gives understanding. Reading will make you free. — Paul Rand

Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated. — Paul Rand

If I was influenced by anything, it was architecture: structure having to do with logic. If you don't do it right, the whole thing is going to cave in. In a certain sense, you can carry that to graphic design. Fortunately, however, nobody is going to die if you do it wrong. — Paul Rand

The principal role of a logo is to identify, and simplicity is its means ... Its effectiveness depends on distinctiveness, visibility, adaptability, memorability, universality, and timelessness. — Paul Rand

Design is a way of life, a point of view. It involves the whole complex of visual communications: talent, creative ability, manual skill, and technical knowledge. Aesthetics and economics, technology and psychology are intrinsically related to the process. — Paul Rand

I never did calligraphy ... But handwriting is an entirely different kind of thing. It's part of the syndrome of modernism ... It's part of that asceticism. — Paul Rand

Asymmetric balance creates greater reader interest. Pleasure derived from observing asymmetrical arrangements lies partly in overcoming resistances, which, consciously or not, the spectator adjusts in his own mind. — Paul Rand

In the West, we look at art through life. Well, that's one way of living. In the Orient they look at life through art. They even drink their tea without sugar, for the same reason that they don't like a lot of frilly decorations on a painting. I can't stand butter on my bread for the same reason. I'm allergic to goo and rococo. — Paul Rand

You can't criticize geometry. It's never wrong. — Paul Rand

All art is relationships, all art. Design is relationships. Design in a relationship between form and content ... Your glasses are round. Your collar is diagonal. These are relationships. Your mouth is an oval. Your nose is a triangle - this is what design is. — Paul Rand

In the Orthodox religion, you don't draw the human figure. It's against the rules. — Paul Rand

If a company is second rate, the logo will eventually be perceived as second rate. It is foolhardy to believe that a logo will do its job immediately, before an audience has been properly conditioned. — Paul Rand

Pictures, abstract symbols, materials, and colors are among the ingredients with which a designer or engineer works. To design is to discover relationships and to make arrangements and rearrangements among these ingredients. — Paul Rand

Graphic design, which evokes the symmetria of Vituvius, the dynamic symmetry of Hambidge, the asymmetry of Mondrian; which is a good gestalt, generated by intuition or by computer, by invention or by a system of coordinates, is not good design if it does not communicate. — Paul Rand

Copy, art, and typography should be seen as a living entity; each element integrally related, in harmony with the whole, and essential to the execution of an idea. — Paul Rand

It is important to use
your hands, that is what distinguishes
you from a cow or a computer operator. — Paul Rand

Art is an idea that has found its perfect visual expression. And design is the vehicle by which this expression is made possible. Art is a noun, and design is a noun and also a verb. Art is a product and design is a process. Design is the foundation of all the arts. — Paul Rand

To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit: it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse. To design is to transform prose into poetry. — Paul Rand

Design is everything. Everything! — Paul Rand