A Designer's Art

"Absolutely. His approach to branding, publication design and advertising was so innovative. Rand really saw so much opportunity for novelty, and always added a sense of playfulness to his work. At least his best work. I don’t think his Enron logo was particularly playful, but maybe in designing it so severely he was prescient in some way? I always appreciated that playfulness of his and I interpret it almost as a humanism, a sense of love and respect for his audience. With his designs, we’re all in on the joke. This is an ad, right? His best work has great aesthetic qualities, but he makes sure that we all know exactly what it’s for. Exactly. As an American designer he did so much to establish the credibility of the craft in America. His work paved the way and helped to elevate our standing as American designers. A Designer’s Art is also much more than just a design manual. It has a lot to say about art and visual appreciation more generally, with chapter titles like ‘arts for art’s sake’, ‘imagination and the image’, ‘the politics of design’. Politics is something that often seems to be quite closely intermeshed with the way that graphic messages are conveyed."