This…Is The Stafford Stallion

Paul Rand

NYC: Goodman and Thiese, 1944

Original edition [subtitled A SERIES OF NATIONAL ADVERTISEMENTS FOR STAFFORD FABRICS WHICH APPEARED DURING 1944]. A fine perfect-bound booklet in embossed covers with a one-half french-fold. Interior unmarked and very clean. Book design uncredited, but the title-page typography definitely produced by Rand. A previously unknown document unreferenced in Steven Heller's definitive monograph PAUL RAND (Phaidon 1999).

9.75 x 9.75 perfect-bound booklet with embossed cover and 24 interior pages, including 15 full-page four-color reproductions of the Stafford Fabrics Nationwide ads designed by Rand during 1944. This booklet represents the most complete collection of these influential advertisements available.

Stafford Fabrics was an original client of William Weintraub & Co., the agency where Rand grabbed the reins of Chief Art Director after three fruitful years at Esquire. The Stafford Stallion represents one of Rand's earliest trademark designs. In "The Trademark as an Illustrative Device" Rand wrote that "the trademark becomes doubly meaningful when it is used both as an identifying device and an illustration, each working hand in hand to enhance and dramatize the effect of the whole."

— Randall Ross of modernism101.com