me studio

design hero ‘paul rand’ has always been a good source of one-liners about design… the following quote which i heard in an interview with rand in the early 90’s (the link was posted earlier this week on the FFFblog) is just completely baffling to me… what is he actually saying? answers on a postcard to the usual address please…

i think that people don’t understand how or why a logo is designed, most clients or people on the street think that the important thing about a logo is that it illustrates what a business does or what it represents, which is nonsense… i think that this is proven by this logo… (he was talking about his IBM logo) i mean a logo becomes meaningful only after it’s used… in other words the illustration that represents the logo is the product… and not the logo…

so that comes after the logo and that of course requires that the thing is seen and associated… and association is what makes the logo…

(westinghouse annual report by paul rand)