Famous Designers

Paul Rand’s career began at a very young age, allowing his work to become highly acclaimed and admired to this day. He is considered one of the greatest Graphic Designers of all time. Initially named Peretz Rosenbaum, Rand decided to shorten his name to ‘Paul Rand.’ This was one of his first identity brand decisions, which will be remembered for generations to come. Rand employed and supported the Swiss Style of graphics, and one can see this in many posters and logos. Paul Rand left his imprint on the world through the many logos and brand designs. He created logos for several high-end corporations like: IBM, UPS, abc, etc.

Massimo Vignelli was an Italian designer, who pursued much of his career in the United States. He studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano from 1950 to 1953 and later trained at the Universita di Architetttura, Venice. The Vignelli’s had many strong ties in Europe and in America, so they established designing firms in both countries but officially established their home in the United States after Massimo had designed a logo for the Container Corporation of America. While living here in America, the Vignelli’s focused on corporate identity. They successfully designed many identities for the following companies: Knoll, American Airlines, Bloomingdales, Xerox, Lancia, Cinzano, and Ford Motors.

Jan Tschichold had powerful influences on twentieth-century typography. He is admired for his support of sans-serif typography and the guidelines he created for typography hierarchy when employing type in design. However, he later returned to favoring roman typefaces, supporting the classicist theory. Tschichold is also known most for his career with the Penguin Book company, designing covers that remain classic to this day.

Max Bill was a Swiss graphic artist, industrial designer, architect, sculptor, and painter, primarily important for his sophisticated, disciplined advertising designs. He was truly a renaissance man, exploring areas that interested him. Not only did he explore these areas, he succeeded in them by creating abstract beauties either through painting, sculpting, or designing.

Robert Massin is a well-known French graphic artist. He began his career in book clubs, designing several hundred-book jackets from 1950 to the present. This career allowed Massin to create a unique take on the Eugene Ionesco play "The Bald Soprano" ("La Cantatrice Chauve"), first published in France by Gallimard in 1964. His groundbreaking typographic and visual treatment by using playful collages of posturized black-and-white photographs of the actors in silhouette, surrounded by sprays and cascades of type in varying sizes and styles, he created a juxtaposition of type and image in book form that became a classic of expressive typography.