Paul Rand Conversations with Students
Michael Kroeger
Foreword by Wolfgang Weingart
Texts by Philip Burton Steff Geissbuhler Jessica Helfand Armin Hofmann Gordon Salchow
Princeton Architectural Press, New York
Conversation One
“Design is relationships. Design is a relationship between form and content.� 18
Paul Rand
Conversation One
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Michael Kroeger I brought in a couple of the books that you recommended the other night at the lecture. Paul Rand Oh yes, this book is familiar. Kroeger I started reading the first chapter of Dewey’s Art as Experience (1934). Rand You did? That is pretty good? How long did it take? Kroeger Well a couple of pages each night. It does not go very fast. This is the other one we talked about, Doren’s A History of Knowledge (1991).
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Rand This is very good, a summary, and very knowledgeable. It is not just a
equivalent. You are just not educated.
guy who abbreviates things, the guy
I mean, you just don’t know.
writes novels. He is the guy who was
Kroeger He talks about, in the first
caught in 1964 on the television show
chapter, the artistic and aesthetic
Twenty-One.1
approach intertwined. He said he could
Students should know about
not find a word that combined both of
these things. It is a good book to read.
those terms, or the aesthetics of art.
A good reference book. But if you are
Rand Well you can talk about it, there
going to start a bibliography you have
is a lot to talk about. This first chapter I
got a lot of books.
think on the very first page he says,
Kroeger You said during your lecture the other night that you have six pages of
By one of the ironic perversities that often
references in your latest book. (Figure 2)
attend the course of affairs, the existence
Rand Yes.
of the works of art upon which formations
Kroeger Is this John Dewey book in
of an esthetic theory depends has become
there?
an obstruction to theory about them. For
Rand That is one of the books. Well,
one reason, these works are products that
you are just not an educated designer
exist externally and physically. In common
unless you read this book or the
conception, the work of art is often
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Paul Rand
identified with the building, book, painting,
paint in a museum—nobody was ever
or statue in its existence apart from human
there. But now it is impossible.
experience. Since the actual work of art
Kroeger Do you think people are search-
is what the product does with and in
ing for something to give meaning to
experience, the result is not favorable to
their lives?
understanding. In addition, the very
Rand I do not know; do not ask me. You
perfection of some of these products, the
will have to ask a psychologist. This
prestige they possess because of a long
book (Art as Experience) deals with
history of unquestioned admiration,
everything—there is no subject he does
creates conventions that get in the way of
not deal with. . . . This is his most famous
fresh insight. When an art product once
book. All your students should read it.
attains classic status, it somehow
(Figure 3)
becomes isolated from the human
Kroeger How do you relate reading or
conditions under which it was brought into
can you relate your experience to
being and from the human consequences
designing?
it engenders in actual life-experience.
Rand You do not. It is like eating bread—
it is nourishment when you run—you do
This is the essence of this whole
book, this paragraph. That art is a thing
not eat bread [while you are running],
you do not experience but you have to go
but there is a clincher here that you may
into a museum to find it. He says that art
not like.
is everywhere.
Kroeger Art in the museum is a fairly recent development. Rand Museums have separated art from normal experience. The answer is in the problem. The problem is that it is isolated from where it should be. Art should be in your bedroom, in your kitchen, not just in the museums. It used to be when you went into a museum there was nobody there. When I went into art school we used to go and
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Conversation One
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Kroeger That you may not be a good
look wet. What is the difference? This
designer—by just reading this book.
stuff is difficult stuff to do. You are
Rand Being able to do something, explain
involved in very complicated philosophy
and understand what you are doing—it is
and psychology. Wetness to one person
like sitting in an easy chair. It is like what
may be dryness to somebody else.
Matisse said, do you understand? It leads
(Figures 23–26)
to something.
Everything is relative. Design is
Kroeger I want to talk about these early
relationships. That is where you start to
stages of design. (Figures 4–8) The basic
design. Do you say what design is?
foundation—what would be an approach
That is important. If you say design is
to graphic design education. This is how I
relationships, you are already giving them
start: line interval studies, color problems,
something. That is very basic, and they
get the students familiar with
do not already know about it when they
composition. (Figures 9–17)
read this stuff. Without knowing the basic
Rand Why do you call this curved line and
theory, people feel they have to
curve shape? It should be curved. Curved
memorize everything. It is impossible.
line, one passive, one active, which is
Kroeger That is what I am trying to
passive, which is active? (Figures 18–20)
approach. What is the best way to teach
Kroeger The idea is to relate the forms
design to undergraduate design students?
to each other. The passive form is relative
Rand You have to define all your terms.
to the active form within its context. The
You have to define what design is. Do you
other examples are color studies: wet
know what design is? What is design?
and dry, hot and cold, good and evil, and
People have to understand what the hell
tumble and hide. (Figure 21 & 22)
they are doing. In art school people
Rand I know. How is this wet? How is this
assume everybody understands
dry? You are just saying it. It does not
everything. They do not. You talk about
Ground grid structure
4. Checkerboard
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Paul Rand
5. Floating
6. Gradation
7. Rhythm
8. Motion
Vertical-line-composition development: five black and four white lines
9. Even / static
10. Static / white dominant 11. Static / black dominant 12. Progression / black increases, white remains same 13. Progression / white increases, black 9
remains same
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14. Progression / white increases, black increases, same direction different rates 15. Progression / black decreases, white increases 16. Progression / white decreases, black increases
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17. Random line composition using
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13
common elements from the matrix 18. Two shapes, passive compared to active 19. Passive, active, more active, with an addition of a linear element 20. Passive to extremely active (five edge elements)
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Organic, curvilinear form development
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19
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Word communication with ten square elements
21. Tumble
22. Hide
23. Cold
24. Wet
25. Dry
26. Hot
Conversation One
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Paul Rand
design and there is no definition, and
it comes to illustrating wetness or
everybody has different ideas about
dryness, that is something else.
what design is. One person thinks of his
You have to establish a
father’s tie. One person thinks of his
relationship. It has to be related some
mother’s nightgown. Another person
way to something that gives you a clue.
thinks of the carpet in the living room.
You have to have some visual clue. This
Another person is thinking of his
is how you show wetness and dryness.
wallpaper in his bathroom. You know?
You do not do it the way you did it. That
That is not design. That is decorating.
is not possible. Unless you explain it,
What is the difference between design and decoration? The basics are
that is not explained. Now if, for example, you have a
very important! This is not basic. There
pattern of white dots on a black
is nothing basic about this stuff. This
background, there is an idea of wetness
is really sophisticated stuff. I do not
by association with raindrops. So there
know how it was taught in Basel. I
are all kinds of associations that come
suppose it was done by example, not
into the picture. You are dealing with a
by theory.
very complicated subject. (Figure 28)
Kroeger We can point to design. This poster is good design. The chair is a good design. (Figure 27) Rand Everything is design. Everything! Kroeger Then what do we have? We
Paul Rand’s idea
have good design or bad design?
by author
of wetness, realized
Rand That’s right.
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Kroeger Then how do we decide?
Marion Rand (Paul Rand’s wife)
Rand You ask questions that are not
It strikes me that there must be some
answerable. There are a priori notions
books that you could find. Books that
about things that are self-understood.
would explain the foundation of design.
Everybody agrees. There are things that
Kroeger Kepes’s Language of Vision
are not a priori, things that do not agree.
(1969)?
There are things that you agree, you
Rand No, no, no! That is philosophical
know, you go out, the sun is shining,
double-talk.
everybody agrees, very pleasant. When
Marion: Not Kepes. Conversation One
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Paul Rand
Conversation One
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Conversation One
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