
Paul Rand and Steve Jobs (2011) - seatonist
http://www.printmag.com/featured/paul-rand-steve-jobs/
======
josephpmay
Compare to this (Pepsi logo redesign booklet): [PDF]
[http://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-
arnell-...](http://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-
arnell-021109.pdf)

~~~
imjk
Reading that document a few years ago lead to an epiphany for me in realizing
that there may actually be value in some of the BSing you're forced to do in
school. I think human nature leads people to seek deeper meaning and
explanations, and the BS assignments force you to create convincing
rationalizations that satiate that need. This is particularly true when you're
trying to justify spending a lot of money on more abstract things like, say, a
logo redesign. From what I remember, Pepsi paid the firm that put together
that presentation about a million dollars for that logo. Granted, I think it's
a good logo and certainly an improvement on the old, but I don't think that
the artist(s) actually looked to Da Vinci's Mona Lisa or the expanding rate of
the universe for influence. That's just the BS rationalization that was added
later to help them close the deal.

~~~
mmxiii
>in realizing that there may actually be value in some of the BSing

I don't know if this is the conclusion to take away. The OP of this topic is
an example of where meaning and relevance does exist for design decisions, and
can lead to a very thoughtful conclusion.

The Pepsi one, in contrast, is just applying as many functions/transforms on a
problem, and hoping some of the results look OK.

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johnloeber
Reading that design booklet was marvellous. I loved tracking the evolution of
the idea.

However, I feel as if there's some risk taken in delivering an entire booklet
that slowly tracks the germination of an idea. This risk seems to consist of
two aspects:

1) the assumption is made that the entire booklet will actually be read, and
that the reader doesn't become sidetracked by e.g. disagreeing with some
statements early on

2) the idea proposed in the end has to be very good, a final proposition to
merit the entire booklet. Booklet-style design probably doesn't lend itself to
rapid, iterative generation of ideas.

~~~
psweber
Less of a risk when you are as established as he was by 1986. I think it was
safe to assume that Steve Jobs would appreciate and digest the format. A
standard 3 concepts on poster board presentation would have been much more
risky, given the audience.

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cschmidt
Paul Rand was different than many logo designers, in that he just presented a
single solution, rather than letting the client pick from several. He worked
out what he thought was right, and that's what you were going to get.

This is a pretty good book about Paul Rand, for the curious:
[http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Rand-Steven-
Heller/dp/0714839949/](http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Rand-Steven-
Heller/dp/0714839949/)

~~~
ics
And for a book by Paul Rand, I would recommend _A Designer 's Art_ if you can
find it.

[http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Rand-A-
Designer%60s-Art/dp/030008...](http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Rand-A-
Designer%60s-Art/dp/0300082827)

------
FreshPuzzles
You can see Rand deliver the goods in this video
[http://youtu.be/BNeXlJW70KQ?t=51s](http://youtu.be/BNeXlJW70KQ?t=51s)

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chiph
The genius in this is how Paul led the reader from one variation to the next
(no pun intended), until ultimately arriving at his final proposal.

~~~
spacecadet
If you drop money on a brand from a real design firm, you get this same
booklet. It's common practice. I've had to both design brands and the
booklet's we gave to clients, as recently as a year ago. Of course a year of
R&D, Market/Competitor Research and Design Studies cost our client $150,000.

Usually budget logo design; from freelancers etc, result in you getting an
email with x number of Options and little to no reasoning.

~~~
joezydeco
_It 's common practice_

It's salesmanship! When you spend six figures on a logo, you are certainly
going to enter the final presentation with a lot of skepticism. Presenting the
final work this way alleviates that anxiety.

You have to wonder if some of that salesmanship rubbed off on Jobs and if he
carried that into his later years at Apple.

~~~
shitehawk
You don't sell the steak, you sell the sizzle.

------
glhaynes
I love Paul Rand but I've never loved this logo and I don't think any amount
of explanation of it could ever cause me to. And I like even less the way it
caused them to write the company name ("NeXT"). Complicated, ugly, a
distraction. Un-Jobsian.

Hell, even the name "Next" has always struck me as indulgent and the opposite
of product-focused: it was more evocative of the question everyone was asking
("What's Steve Jobs going to do next?") than of great products.

~~~
aleem
While I am no fan of this particular logo as a matter of personal preference,
the "NeXT" character-casing is better than just "Next" or "next" since it
creates identity.

Identity creates recognition and unlike "Pepsi" which is a unique word, "Next"
is a fairly common word and without some sort of identity it would go easily
unnoticed in regular writing.

On a related note, I always found that iPhone, iPad, iPod, i* is one of the
best product naming schemes I have come across, not just because of the strong
identity but also because of it's extensibility to new product lines.

~~~
ams6110
Interestingly, the operating system name was written NEXTSTEP without the
lower case "e"

~~~
glhaynes
Apparently it was at one time. According to this, "NextStep" and "OpenStep"
were written a number of different ways. Strange times.
[http://www.objectfarm.org/Activities/Publications/TheMerger/...](http://www.objectfarm.org/Activities/Publications/TheMerger/OpenstepConfusion.html)

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psweber
It is very important to make people fall in love with the idea before the
reveal. Great example of that.

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RexRollman
Honestly one of my favorite computer logos ever.

