DIRECTION
Volume 3, No. 9, 1940

Paul Rand: DIRECTION. Darien, CT: Volume 3, No. 9, 1940. Original Edition. A near-fine magazine with very light wear overall, including a one-inch slit along spine bottom. Features the Barbed-Wire Christmas cover design by Paul Rand.

8.25 x 10.75 saddle-stitched magazine book with 24 pages of fiction, social commentary and art. DIRECTION was the laboratory where Rand tested many of this developing theories of modern design and typography. Because he worked without compensation (except for a few Corbusier lithographs...), he was allowed a tremendous amount of aesthetic leeway in designing the DIRECTION magazine covers. With little money budgeted for typesetting, Rand used his own handwriting for the cover copy, and the rest is history.

Paul Rand's DIRECTION covers have been reprinted in every major graphic design anthology and have achieved iconic stature in their own right. A rare opportunity to acquire an original edition of this publication.

Contents include Percy Seitlin's two-page Art in Industry column dealing with the problems faced by the commercial artist. Includes three images by E. McKnight Kauffer. Percy Seitlin was a writer and co-editor of PM and AD magazines. He served on the staff of the Composing Room from 1933 to 1943 and helped to organize and run the AD Gallery and then Gallery 303. He was director of advertising and publicity at Aetna Steel Products Corp., head of product publicity for Celanese Corporation of America, did PR for the Museum of Modern Art's exhibit on Marcel Breuer, wrote poetry, short stories, advertising copy and articles on the graphic arts and typography for several publications. His books include New York: People and Places.

Edited by William Gropper, et al, including contributing editors Richard Wright, Kenneth Burke and Edwin Seaver. A dynamic, frequently visually striking, consistently left of center journal of literature and the arts, drawing on the foundations left by the WPA for much of its brilliance. A substantial roster of contributors appeared through its tenure, including Dreiser, Dos Passos, Le Corbusier, Caldwell, Rexroth, Kees, Larsson, Abel, Kemp, Anderson, Herbst, Scott, Brown, Art Young, Halper, Komroff, Macleod, Bourke White, Burke, di Donato, Woody Guthrie, Seldes, Lorentz, Hughes, Maltz, Chaplin, Sandburg, R. Lowry, Ellison, Morris, et al. A major 20th century American periodical which is increasingly difficult to acquire in decent condition.

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