A longtime professor of design, first at Cooper Union and Pratt Institute, in New York, and for over a decade at Yale University, in New Haven, Paul Rand has left a legacy of quotes.

Between logos and trademarks for UPS, IBM, Westinghouse, and many more, he prodded his students to be better. Even today, you can’t argue with these ideas about design: “You can't criticize geometry. It's never wrong.” “Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions; there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated.” “Ideas do not need to be esoteric to be original or exciting.” These are still words to live by.

A tough and at times irascible critic, Rand influenced generations of younger designers, many of whom hold prominent positions in business and academia today. Join a group of graphic design professors for a discussion of Rand’s pioneering and still relevant approach to design education on Monday, June 15^th at 6:30 pm.

Left: 1967, book jacket, “The Dada Painters and Poets” by Robert Motherwell; center: 1946, cover design, Jazzways magazine; right: 1947, Thoughts on Design, written and designed by Paul Rand, and recently brought back in print in a new edition by Chronicle Books.

Design as Discipline: From the Drafting Table to the Academy, with

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Director of the Yale University Graduate Program in Graphic Design at Yale University School of Art and Chair of the Dean Search Committee
Margaret Morton, Professor, School of Art, The Cooper Union
Lorraine Wild, Principal of Green Dragon Office
J.P. Williams, Partner of MW
Juliette Cezzar (moderator), 2015 AIGANY President and Assistant Professor of Communication Design, Art, Media and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design. 

Register. This program accompanies the City Museum’s exhibition Everything Is Design: The Work of Paul Rand, on view through September 7.