During a time where many Europeans aimed at escaping from the total political authority hold over society and countries effected by the two great wars, they sought refuge and a new life across the Atlantic in America. Along with all their costumes many also introduced Americans to European avant-garde way of living.

Round about the 1940s America made its move towards the modernist era of design adding however new forms and concepts. Where European design most mainly complex and theoretical, American design sought at being more intuitive, practical and had less of a formal approach when it came to organising space. New York being the focal destination for experimentation of artistry of the mid twentieth century. It nurtured creativity and individuals of great talent and helped them to achieve their full potential.

One of the most influential Pioneers of the New York School more than any other Native American Designer, was Paul Rand (1914-1996). He initiated the American advance to modern design. From a young age he started as a editorial designer for many big name magazines which had a huge spread and print volume. He derived knowledge from modern movement names such as Kandinsky, Klee and the cubists, which gave him a better understanding that freely invented shapes could have a self-contained life, both symbolic and expressive. A magazine cover symbolic of his work is that of Direction Magazine from December 1940, where he utilized red dots with an ambiguous symbolic message.

Rand sometimes used physical visual contrast which portayed his work. He played red against green, organic shape against geometric type, photographic tone against flat colour, cut or torn edges against sharp forms, and the textural pattern of type against white. Rand took risks by searching unproven ideas. In addition, he understood the value of ordinary, universally understood signs and symbols as tools for translating ideas into visual communications. To visually engage the audience effectively and communicate memorably, he knew that the designer needed to alter and contrast signs and symbols. A reinterpretation of the message was sometimes necessary to make the ordinary into something extraordinary.

The art of the New York School was a place of play for the futurist concept. With all his visual resourcefulness, Rand brought about a distinct design and the integration of form and function for effective communication. The educational role of the designer was to upgrade rather than serve the least common denominator of public taste. During the early period of Rand’s career, he made forays into the vocabulary of modern art but never parted from an immediate accessibility of image.

Paul Rand’s use of shape and asymmetrical balance during the 1940s was an important inspiration for Saul Bass. The sensibilities of the New York school were then taken to Los Angeles by Saul Bass (1919–96). Saul Bass’s frequently reduced contrasts of shape, colour, and texture in his designs to a single dominant image. Bass had an outstanding ability to convey the basis of a design with images that become glyphs, or elemental pictorial signs that exert great graphic power.