Knowing What's Next
After departing from Apple in 1986, Steve Jobs set to work creating the revolutionary computer and software company, NeXT, and he needed an equally iconic trademark. Familiar with Paul Rand’s oeuvre, he approached IBM for permission to work with the designer. While proposing the NeXT logo, Rand simply handed Jobs a presentation booklet full of designs. Jobs later recalled, "The book itself was a surprise. I was convinced that each typographic example on the first few pages was the final logo. I was not quite sure what Paul was doing until I reached the end. And at that moment I knew we had a solution.... Rand gave us a jewel, which in retrospect seems so obvious.”
Rand’s trademark design for NeXT became one of the designer’s most recognizable works and in 1998 Jobs placed Rand in the Apple Think Different campaign alongside pioneers of other mediums, including Pablo Picasso, Bob Dylan, Martha Graham and Miles Davis.
Personal preferences, prejudices, and stereotypes often dictate what a logo looks like, but it is needs, not wants, ideas, not type styles which determine what its form should be.
Paul Rand
