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Rand v Jobs: when egos collide
Posted by Patrick Burgoyne, 31 October 2011, 11:55 Permalink Comments (39)
Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs is full of examples of the latter's 'challenging' behaviour. But when Jobs asked Paul Rand to create the identity for his Next business, he finally met his match
Isaacson's book describes how Jobs, in 1986 and recently ousted from Apple, wanted a logo for his new computer business, Next. He decided to go for the best – Paul Rand. But Rand was contracted to IBM at the time. After pestering IBM senior management, Jobs managed to get their permission to use Rand and flew him out to California.
The Next was to be cube-shaped so Rand suggested the logo be so too. Jobs agreed and asked to see some options. Big mistake. Rand didn't do options.
"I will solve your problem and you will pay me," he told Jobs. "You can use what I produce or not, but I will not do options, and either way you will pay me." And it would cost $100,000.
Two weeks later, Rand flew back and presented his solution in the form of a book (scan above, more at Imprint here) walking Jobs through the rationale. Jobs loved it but asked for the yellow of the 'e' to be brighter. According to Isaacson, "Rand banged his fist and declared, 'I've been doing this for fifty years and I know what I'm doing.' Jobs relented."
Not only that, but he respected Rand for standing up to him, as this interview shows (spotted over at David Airey's LogoDesignLove site). A lesson there for anyone presenting to clients? Perhaps, but Rand was 71 at the time and a globally-renowned expert in his field: not everyone could get away with it.
More design and advertising-related stories from Steve Jobs: the exclusive biography by Walter Isaacson (Little, Brown, £25) here
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39 Comments
While I'm a huge Rand fan generally - and I will probably get annhilated for this - I've never been a fan of this logo. Perhaps it just hasn't aged as well as the rest of his work, but I just don't find it appealing. Does anyone else feel the same?
Feel free to flame me - or better still convince me of it's merit
Matt
2011-10-31 12:43:21
And it would cost $100,000.
That sentence intrigues me... was this the standard Rand-rate for producing a logo? For the time that seems an exorbitant amount of money (especially for 1986) – how many clients would be willing to agree to such a fee knowing they'd have little or no say in the outcome?
I guess when you're one of the best you charge the most!
2011-10-31 13:03:08
Still a great story though - and a lesson to all creatives to stick by their guns more often.
2011-10-31 14:10:55
I agree with what your saying Matt, when you look at the UPS logo or the ABC logo they dont look dated.However with the NEXT logo you could almost guess it was from the 1980's by just glancing at it.
I feel its the bright colours on the black background which make it look dated, not many logos these days feature this colour scheme.
2011-10-31 15:10:05
I don't think it looks dated to be honest, even 25 years later I think it still has a pretty modern feel to it, very effective too.
Great story all the same.
2011-10-31 21:16:38
I have to wonder if the influence on the colors was somehow influenced by the use of colors in the original Apple logo. Nobody today would use the multi-color band Apple logo, and that icon has evolved over the past 30 years to stay relevant, much as the products have.
2011-10-31 22:48:23
He set that fee and made such a rebuttal to Steve's request most likely because he knew he was eagerly sought after. Don't people normally milk their worth and power once they've recognized others' need for them?
2011-10-31 23:12:41
good story. I think it's partly due to Rand sticking to his guns indeed, but also it's handy when you have a client who trusts you and is willing to let you drive. Very rare I find that a client will accept just one solution these days.
Also I agree with Matt, that is not a good logo, either aesthetically or conceptually.
2011-11-01 12:30:29
At least it is now possible to produce a fine digital book of any presentation... Bip
2011-11-01 12:30:55
i think the yellow of the 'e' should be brighter...
2011-11-01 12:50:53
"I'll solve your problem and you pay me. You're the client, you don't have to use it but either way, you pay me."
Love it! The balls of the guy!
2011-11-01 13:06:45
Stick to yours guns, no matter who the client is. Don't do options and still get paid if they use it or not...I've just had an epiphany!
2011-11-01 13:13:58
Just an amusing note, the actual logo did use a brighter yellow.
2011-11-01 16:03:04
@Matt @Alex I agree -- the logo has never impressed me. I was never even curious as to who designed it, and didn't know it was Paul Rand until the Jobs biography release. I wonder if, deep down, Rand was really happy with it...
2011-11-01 17:56:19
@Luke - "I guess when you're one of the best you charge the most!"
If there is any truth in a designers work being testament to their ability then the above is amateur at best (timeframe taken into consideration).
If I could charge 100k for twaddle like that – throw a strop and still get paid I would be a billionaire!
2011-11-01 20:47:19
Great story!
2011-11-01 23:01:40
matt,
the fact that the next logo is still around and being talked about speaks for itself, as well as the quality of rand's work.
:)
2011-11-02 10:28:59
Even the best designers make weak work sometimes, and despite Paul Rand's legendary aura, Next's logo is a lemon. It looked silly at the time, specially in the way it was used. Rand was a better teacher than he was a designer, anyways. Hugely, hugely influential. And this is a great story either way.
2011-11-02 12:24:05
in my humble opinion, it's a bad bad logo.
i never knew it was a rand logo until today.
in my humble opinion, it's a bad bad logo.
2011-11-02 13:40:20
That was the Eighties when designers could have gotten away with murder. But today that kind of attitude is an absolute no no. May be a few...handful can get away with that. But still, many designers (including the pretty mediocre ones) still maintain that they know better and the client is a silly buffoon with all the ill-gotten money.
We are in the age of co-creation, those days of hero designers is long gone.
Nevertheless a good story.
2011-11-02 15:21:27
Personally I would've told Rand to stick it. There are a lot of very talented designers out there who could've done a much better job. No CEO, no designer deserves to be put up on a pedestal....especially when they put themselves there.
2011-11-02 16:19:28
The N and T have squared edges. The X and e have angled endings. It's the e that looks worst. It feels badly drawn. Example: the curve is equal weight all around. It should LOOK to be equal weight but should not actually BE equal weight. Similarly, the N, where the angled stroke meets the verticals, has none of the subtle darts one can find in Futura for example so the joins look heavy-handed. May just be the repro art used here, not so in the original.
There is, I often thought, a subtle brilliance in that the XT is on one line. In the 80s, did not XT refer to a certain type of computer? And if so, did that not also apply to the Next computer?
As to the colors, I recall seeing a film or something about Next and the factory. It showed a vast factory, pristinely clean, not a mote of dust, everything brightly color coded. That may also have influenced the logo color scheme, which would've made sense then, but not now.
2011-11-02 18:27:40
Great little story. Creative talents are entitled to ego's and strops, without an opinion they offer little so try and take that away and see what happens.
As for the logo I like it. It's both of it's time and ahead of it's time. The archetypal 80's 'black box' is an insignia of modern technology industrial design from that era. Contrast that with the bright upper and lower case texts that wasn't to become a trend till well into the 90s, reminiscent of Sony's PlayStation controller buttons.
2011-11-03 13:34:02
"I will solve your problem and you will pay me" – anyone else reminded of the Mr Tourette cartoons?!
2011-11-03 13:59:14
That logo is a piece of irredeemable garbage.
2011-11-03 14:21:00
Two egos met on an open plane and the guy wearing the beret was victorious. There was a chicken and egg component. Did Mr. Rand's reputation lay the golden egg that set things in motion? Mr. Jobs' titanic ego needed (and demanded) a known global player. If an identical NEXT logo had been presented to Mr. Jobs by a Palo Alto design student, it would have been trashed.
I like the NEXT icon. It is still strong, elegant and distinctive, in my opinion. That said, an Everest measure of attitude helped bring it into the world.
2011-11-03 14:39:25
I AGREE WITH AARON SMULKTIS. POWER AND WORTH.AND KNOWING THAT SOMEONE NEED YOU.
2011-11-03 15:35:02
Rand got us all thinking and talking and still talking long after... there has to be something in that!
2011-11-03 17:35:25
Rand may have had balls by the time he met Jobs, but I'm sure he had to chew a few nuts to get them...
2011-11-03 18:11:07
It looks like the "e" IS brighter in the larger image at the top and I agree with Jobs... it looks better. Perhaps Jobs changed it after all. I mean once you own it, I suppose you can change it if you want to.
2011-11-03 18:57:22
Praise like that coming from sjobs in the video is a very high recommendation to my mind.
All you hindsight quarter-backs who never liked the logo or think it's dated want to listen to what jobs said about the problem they were trying to solve. Were they trying to create a classic logo for the ages? No. Was it somewhat of, perhaps ahead of it's time? Undoubtedly. Did it gain the broad recognition NeXT were seeking almost overnight? My guess is yes. That's at least a pass in my book.
Clients must always be listened to, deeply, but that doesn't mean they know the next step to take, that's the designers job.
2011-11-03 23:37:47
people forgetting that the logo was created back in the 80s where people don't do curves and IBM = a lot of machines and computers apparently are just for the minority....
those of you who think this is a crap logo should really think again and not to judge the logo as it was created YESTERDAY, for goodness sake, Cars designed back in the 80s are ugly as hell, but at that time, you wouldnt say that!
If Rand presented the logo to Jobs in 2011, then may be, however, i still want to read his proposal first thou, sometimes, you just got to go outside of your own little cubicle.
and yes, every now and then you get something like the classic porsche, that people still love but how rare is that?
2011-11-04 02:13:46
Ohh and by the way,
Just to remind you that the other person in this article is called Steve Jobs...
and if I remember correctly, that man is pretty clever and probably much more successful than all of us combined together.
2011-11-04 02:16:27
"Rand didn't do options." - but there are color options present!!
2011-11-04 07:00:30
great logo, and good lesson to learn. "I don't do options", classic!
2011-11-04 08:42:21
While Rand's presentation is unique, I would argue his basic approach need not be. Thinker/writer/designer/studio owner Andy Rutledge has published a really helpful guide to maintaining professional design standards that actually gives form to the belief that designers are professionals, not simply visual workers: http://designprofessionalism.com/
2011-11-04 15:08:13
Regarding the color version of the logotype (don't forget, it also came in black and white too!):
Rand's work, even corporate work, was always colorful and playful. I think any impression that the design looks "80s" is just his playful modernist aesthetic coming through. Also, he knew Jobs (at the time) liked color based on the Apple logo (at the time).
I suppose if NEXT survived on its own, Jobs would have updated the design to be less about color and more about form. Just like the Apple silhouette is now. It would still have worked and been pretty nice too.
2011-11-04 19:53:54
great story - love the conviction and authority in the subject :)
2011-11-07 12:53:11
Having worked on both Apple and NEXT in the late 80's, I know which logo and guidelines I prefer. I'm a big fan of Paul Rand, but NEXT was not his finest work. Looking at it now I find it very of it's time, and dated.
2012-02-13 08:18:21
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