paul RAND
”El Producto”, 1953
Cigar Box, classic packaging design by Paul Rand for El Producto cigars. Features a Man Ray-inspired photogram on the cover, unique and colorful lettering, and photo illustration of cigar layout on the bottom. Paul Rand's distinctive signature is printed in the lower corner. Made of cedar wood with paper covering, the Cigar Album. The original orange plastic cigar dividers are inside. Originally contained a total of 25 cigars in 4 styles (no cigars are included). A superb and rare piece of graphic design history worthy of a museum collection. 11" x 8.75" x 1".
Condition:
Excellent- with minimal wear (see pics).
Provenance:
Private Collection, NY
Note:
”In a campaign for El Producto cigars in the 1950s, he added hand-drawn hands, hats and other accouterments to cutout photographs of cigars, turning them into goofy characters. Yet a cigar box designed by Mr. Rand for that company in 1952 is seriously elegant. Its cover bears a ghostly black-and-white photogram of cigars and an ashtray, and the words El Producto are rendered along the bottom edge in stenciled, multicolored block letters — a typographical style that Jasper Johns later used to great advantage. That box isn’t in the show, but it’s pictured in an excellent book by the design historian and former art director for The New York Times Steven Heller, “Paul Rand” (Phaidon, 1999)”. NY Times, 2015