The Trademarks of Paul Rand — A Selection

First (only) edition; limited to 450 copies. Softcover perfect-bound book in stiff, printed french-folded wrappers under original publishers’ glassine wrappers. The interior signatures are perfect-bound in the Japanese-style. Cover design and typography by the author. General formatting and printing by Hiram Ash at the School of Art and Architecture, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

According to a Wittenborn trade advertisement in TYPOGRAPHICA [New Series] 3 (London: Lund Humphries, June 1961, page 72), THE TRADEMARKS OF PAUL RAND was issued in a 450 copy press run and subsequently offered for $7.50 per copy. This limitation automatically makes this volume the rarest of books authored by Paul Rand.

9.5 x 9.5 softcover book (unpaginated) spotlighting 12 of Rand’s classic trademarks. Each mark is presented as a full-page design element with all printing in spot-color. In “The Trademark as an Illustrative Device” Rand wrote that “the trademark becomes doubly meaningful when it is used both as an identifying device and an illustration, each working hand in hand to enhance and dramatize the effect of the whole.” THE TRADEMARKS OF PAUL RAND seeks to transform the sales mark into the realm of fine art.

Contents:

• Introduction by Gibson A. Danes: Dean of the School of Art and Architecture, Yale University
• Comments by Paul Rand: revised and reprinted on page 24 of A Designer’s Art. New Haven: Yale + University Press, 1985.
• Borzai Books, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1945
• Smith, Kline and French Laboratories, 1945
• Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 1960
• Consolidated Cigar Corporation, 1959
• Robeson Cutlery Corporation, 1947
• Helbros Watch Company, 1943
• Harcourt Brace and Company, 1957
• El Producto Cigar Company, 1952
• Colorforms, 1959
• International Business Machines Corporation, 1956
• Coronet Brandy, 1941
• Esquire Magazine, 1938

I find it fascinating to see which marks Rand was most proud of in 1960. THE TRADEMARKS OF PAUL RAND definitely acts as an agenda-setter for how Rand wanted his career legacy to be remembered. Gibson Danes’ introduction also reinforces this point, as well as his decision to appoint Rand Professor of Graphic Design at Yale University’s graduate school of design in 1956.