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Paul Rand, Ordination, Helvetica and Punk’n Beer

It’s always interesting who you run into in the most random circumstances. Just last night a friend and I drove to Charlotte to celebrate the ordination of one of her old friends. After about five smoke breaks and a lot of sitting and standing the service was finally over and we headed to the family’s house to talk in a less formal environment. Mind you, I don’t know any of these people, I was more or less there for the ride. 

I was offered a selection of beer and chose the brand Punk’n purely for the packaging. Then I started (for reasons unknown) explaining why I’m a sucker for packaging and why I think that it says something about a company that will go for an unconventional design for their product. People were a little perplexed why someone that they have never seen before would be ranting on design in their kitchen, so when I explained that I’m a designer one gentleman, Dick Hahn (not too sure of the spelling of the last name), told me that when he worked for Cummins that he worked with a “designer that absolutely LOVED Helvetica.” I interrupted him and whipped out my “I <3 Helvetica” tramp stamp and we got a laugh out of it and then he said that the designers name was Paul Rand. We know him from the UPS, Cummins, ABC and IMB logos, along with many others.

He shared some great stories of Paul’s personality and design style to include his Cummins typeface which was just Helvetica with the C changed to the Cummins logo. I was blown away that this man knew so much about the typeface, but then he told me how he collects old movable type and whatnot. It’s not too often you meet someone that loves typography.

I wasn’t expecting to get into career-relevant conversation with this pious group, but I was pleasantly surprised. Goes to show you that you get little treats throughout your random adventures.

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