Westinghouse — Paul Rand (1959)
In 1959, Paul Rand was commissioned by Westinghouse Electric Corporate, where he redesigned their visual identity using humorous and clever graphic design. My interpretation of the design is that it is meant to resemble a circuit board, of course, relevant to the client. Rand has made it look like a dot to dot, joining the dots on the circuit to finally make the ‘W’ where he then uses on the brands logo. I think this is really smart, but I only made this connection after I research what Westinghouse was, as I was not aware of what they do. Even though this was designed in 1959, Rand seems to have an eye for creating timeless design as his designs don’t seem to age.
The above design is used as the company logo and uses the same ‘W’ circuit board design from the previous blue design. It’s clear that the ‘W’ is a very important part of this logo. The font used with the logo works really well and looks a lot more professional. The blue in the other design makes the company look fresh and contemporary, but the black is more suited for a more professional corporation dealing with electricity. There is just something about Rand’s designs that look like they were designed in this day and age.
This new visual identity is used all over their website to this day, along with the colour scheme that Rand chose for Westinghouse of a range of blues. The blue gives a professional and youthful feel to the website and makes everything look clear and simple.
Paul Rand is a very well known American graphic designer, best known for rebranding visual identity for corporate businesses such as IBM, UPS, ABC, and Next. He is one of a few graphic designers who are inspired by ‘Swiss Style’ of graphic design. Many of the companies he has designed for use his branding to this day too which speaks for itself. Rand in my opinion is a very successful graphic designer, and his designs have stood the test of time and look as fresh as they did back to the day they when they were designed.
