Art for art's sake -- The beautiful and the useful -- The designer's problem -- The symbol in visual communication -- Versatility of the symbol -- The trademark -- Seeing stripes -- Imagination and the image -- Integrating form and content -- Ideas about ideas -- The meaning of repetition -- The role of humor -- The rebus and the visual pun -- Collage and montage -- Yesterday and today -- Typographic form and expression -- About legibility -- The good old neue typografie -- Design and the play instinct -- Black black black -- The art of the package: tomorrow and yesterday -- The third dimension -- The complexity of color -- Word pictures -- The lesson of Ce?zanne -- Politics of design -- Integrity and invention.

Paul Rand was one of the world's leading graphic designers. Here he describes his work with the same precision, economy and passion that he displays in his graphic designs, seeking to help us to understand the nature of his relationships with his clients, his audience and his art