From Lascaux to Brooklyn - Hardcover

Rand, Mr. Paul

4.33

63 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300066767 ISBN 13: 9780300066760

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1996

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One of the world's leading graphic designers. Paul Rand has had a profound influence on the design profession: his pioneering work in the fields of advertising design and typography has helped elevate "commercial art" to one of the fine arts. In this lively and visually arresting book. Rand awakens readers to the lessons of the cave paintings of Lascaux - that art is an intuitive, autonomous, and timeless activity - and he shows how this is conveyed in works of art from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to a painting by Cezanne. African sculpture, a Gorgan pitcher, and a park in Brooklyn, all of which are aesthetically pleasing no matter what their era, place, purpose, style, or genre. Rand defines aesthetics and the aesthetic experience, in particular as it affects the designer, and he helps members of his profession articulate and understand design problems by linking principles of aesthetics to the practice of design.
Illustrating his ideas with examples of his own stunning graphic work, as well as an eclectic collection of masterpieces, Rand discusses such topics as: the relation between art and business: the presentation of design ideas and sketches to prospective clients: the debate over typographic style; and the aesthetics of combinatorial geometry as applied to the grid. His book will engage and enlighten anyone interested in the practice or theory of graphic design.

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About the Author:

Paul Rand is now professor emeritus at Yale University.

Review:

“Paul Rand was driven by a compulsion to play. He called it the Play Principle. It meant investing his work with wit and humor—and intuition. From Lascaux to Brooklyn, his last book, reveals in the title alone a sense of the absurd that made his otherwise logical work come alive.”—Steven Heller, author of Paul Rand
“Paul Rand observes the world from a perspective at once microscopic and vast, reminding us that to be modern means to look backward as well as forward, inside as well as out. As astonishing today as when it was first published, this book reminds us that design has the capacity to engage, enlighten—and endure.”—Jessica Helfand, Yale University
“As a practitioner myself for sixty years in the graphic design profession, I can honestly say that I have never observed anyone who so successfully designed as Paul Rand, over and over again.”—Ivan Chermayeff
"Paul Rand profoundly shaped the modern design professions with his teaching, writing, and practice. This classic book places graphic design within a grand continuum of human expression."—Ellen Lupton, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

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