Publisher: Zokeisya
Language: Japanese English
Product Dimensions: 25.8 x 25 x 1.1 cm
Release Date: 1959
Price: sold
Edited by Yusaku Kamekura
What we commonly understand as ‘originality’ often depends on the successful integration of the symbol as a visual entity with all other elements, pointed to a particular problem,
performing a specific function consistent with its form. Its use at the proper time and place is essential and its misuse will inevitably result in banality or mere affectation.”
The quotation from Paul Rand’s Thoughts on Design is particularly fitting in the present context. That book offered a lucid and jargon free approach to the problems of modern design, forcefully supported by many examples of the artist’s work up to that time (1946). It is safe to say that no other graphic designer on the international scene could have offered a body of work so many-faceted as to be able to support such an approach.
This book is first of all a careful and reasonably complete record of Paul Rand”s work in
the past ten years, illustrated in over 150 plates (31 in color) including examples of his noncommercial easel painting. The breadth of this work is readily apparent in the examples, ranging from large-scale advertising campaigns to book jackets.
Of almost equal interest is the fact that the book is a unique tribute to the universality of the work it displays, having been produced in its entirety in Japan, edited by Yusaku Kamekura (himself a distinguished designer) in close consultation with Paul Rand. There are
informal texts by Bernard Rudofsky, Giovanni Pintori, and Hans Schleger, as well as Yusaku
Kamekura.
In brief, the book offers a defitive selection of the work of an artist who has consistently
refused to approach commercial art on any but the highest levels of the creative imagination, where wit and intelligence, combined with the completely inventive use of symbols, are transformed into a delight for the eye and the mind.
It is no exaggeration to say that there is no one in the graphics field who could not learn from this book.
ポール・ランドについては、いまさら改めて言うまでもない。
1914年、ニューヨークに生まれた彼は、若干23才で大雑誌”エクスワイア”のアートディレクターに抜擢され、その後43才の今日まで、グラフィックアーティストとしてあらゆる部門に天才ぶりを発揮し、すでに押しも押されもせぬ世界的な大家としてみとめられている。
ポール・ランドの作品には、真にすぐれた才能のみがもつ、簡潔さと軽やかさがある。摩天楼の上を舞うギャラントな蝶のようだ。もっとよい意味で、渦をまいたような大都会のなかからうまれた洗練、単純化された形、ふっと息をしている軽いユーモア。そうして大変にモダンである。
本書は、ランドのデザイン生活20年のマイルストーンを劃することになる。ランドと親交のある日本の代表的デザイナー、亀倉雄策によって、本書は慎重な計画のもとに編集されたが、ランド自身の希望によってしばしば変更された。年々歳々数多くのデザイナーのおびただしい作品が発表され、紹介されているとはいえ、一人の作家の遍歴をあとづけ、グラフィック・アートの指向する世界について深い示唆が読みとれえるはずである。