IBM

06/20/2023 (Post 1)

    My first post for today is research based on the graphic designer, Paul Rand. According to the source at the end of this post, "Rand first made his mark in the 1930s with a bold and modernist style, designing magazine and book covers a few years later...After the war, from 1955 onwards, he distinguished himself with progressive graphic identities that served companies' interests. As an artistic director, he helped to transform the advertising industry by emphasizing the importance of graphic design and visuals over writing. He produced logos for large companies such as IBM, ABC, UPS, or Steve Jobs' NeXT, still legendary and almost unchanged to this day (except UPS)". 

    This IBM logo displays characteristics of Early Modern design even though this logo was created in the 1980s for many different reasons. First, while there are illustrations in this design, they show geometric shapes (ex: the stripes in the letter "M", the iris in the eyeball illustration, and even the tear drop shapes on the bee illustration). While there is no photography shown for this design, that doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't an example of Early Modern design. 

    Paul Rand's IBM logo design is important to Early Modernism because even though the logo is standard for the 80s, an influence could easily be created from the Early Modernist period throughout history.  

Image Citation:

Rand, Paul. IBM. 1981. Logo. Found the image on June 20th, 2023. Found image information on https://www.envato.com/blog/paul-rand-designing-famous-logos/. Source: https://www.grapheine.com/en/history-of-graphic-design/paul-rand-everything-is-design.