43 Seconds of Graphic Design Mistakes

Looking for videos on YouTube, this quick segment on the TV news show 20/20 popped up. John Stossel does a funny little 43 second blurb on the three most common design mistakes Americans make. First he admonishes us to never use Comic Sans. Then number two: change your name to Paul Rand so the networks, like ABC, will pay you a lot of money to design their logo. The third mistake is not knowing who Paul Rand is.

While changing your name to Paul Rand might not be feasible, let's see if we can do our part to rectify the other two mistakes:

• ban comic sans - the source for anti-comic sans propaganda
  The name says it all. There's history, pictures, and merchandise.

• The Global Curse of Comic Sans
  At Design Observer, Jessica Helfand (who happens to be the person who prompted the 20/20 segment) says "Comic Sans is in a class all its own."

• Paul Rand
  In its Design Pioneers feature, Communication Arts profiles Paul Rand.

• Paul Rand Tribute by DLS Design
  This overview of the life and design work of Paul Rand includes a display of some of his most famous logo designs such as IBM, Westinghouse, and UPS.

• Books by and about Paul Rand
  Compare prices on a selection of books such as Paul Rand: A Designer's Art, Paul Rand by Steven Heller, Design, Form, and Chaos, and From Lascaux to Brooklyn.

• Paul Rand: Bibliography as Biography
  William Drenttel provides a selection of titles from the Collection of Paul Rand, writing "as an anthropolgical study, it is not only revealing about Paul Rand as a human being, but is suggestive, too, of the degree to which this designer was an engaged reader with a deeper intellectual life."