Paul Rand: Modernist Design illuminates Rand’s role as a major figure at the epicenter of twentieth-century art and design. This book is a compendium of essays, tributes, interviews, dialogues, photographic reproductions, contextual timeline, an extensive bibliography and impressions of Rand’s impact on modern communication practice and theory.

The goal of the project was to contribute to the literature on design history and to inform design professionals, artists, industry, governmental and educational institutions, students, historians and the larger public. The overall scheme, design brief and approach called for showing Rand’s work in a format as part of a series that has been established by the Center for Art and Visual Culture at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Specifically, the composition of text and image in the book addresses the issue of scale in presenting work of varied sizes, content, context and meaning.

At present, there are few vehicles for recording monographs on designers. As such, books in the genre of Paul Rand: Modernist Design have an eager audience who seek to augment their understanding of design practice, theory and education. The impact and quality of this book were influenced by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and Mossberg and Company, a printer of high-end fine art, institutional and business publications. Mossberg and Company was a major collaborator with Paul Rand for over forty years on many of his seminal works. As a great gesture of support for Rand’s work and design history, Mossberg and Company generously supported in full the production and printing of this book.

For us, he has left behind a noteworthy legacy that should become a visual and intellectual adventure to designers, students, historians, critics, industry, and the public. To this day, Paul Rand’s ideas about art, design, and culture are expressed through practice and theory, and above all, in his books, which are essential to understanding the immense accomplishments of his life’s work. Paul Rand: Modernist Design adds to the growing literature on Paul Rand, helping to place him in the proper context within a century of innovative art, design, architecture, science, and technology.

“You can’t do less, but you shouldn’t do more when designing a book on Paul Rand.” Lars Müller