The Man Who Designed America

[MaximOfSurrey]

http://www.life.com/image/73574583/in-gallery/35402/#index/0

With a quick snippet:

Modeling the Future

Arguably the most influential industrial designer of the 20th century, French-born Raymond Loewy (1893 - 1986) fashioned or utterly re-imagined a dizzying array of products and brands during a career spanning seven decades. Writer, illustrator, and co-founder of the Web's best blog, BoingBoing, Mark Frauenfelder has been fascinated by Loewy's work for years. In this gallery, Mark celebrates his favorite Loewy projects, and muses on the man's enduring appeal.

Loewy certainly had style, I'll give him that! A quick glance didn't seem to show any other threads on the subject, so I hope I'm not double posting.

 

[Mr Vim]

Well done, its an intersting photo spread / article.

 

[Atomic Age]

Loewy may have designed America, but he had a little help from Henry Dreyfuss.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dreyfuss

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Dreyfuss and Loewy were both fantastic minds! Don't forget Harley Earl either!

 

[Atomic Age]

Earl was brilliant to be sure, but he was really a one product designer, unlike Dreyfuss and Loewy.

Doug

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Very true. Dreyfuss' designs are still recognizable to the masses today. The round thermostat which is still in many homes, also the 500 and 302 telephones come to mind.

And who can forget Loewy's Avanti, his work with Stude was great. You just don't see that kind of talent anymore.

 

[Engrishman]

I think anyone responsible for designing the brand image of a cornerstone American corporation like Coca-Cola would have massive amounts of influence on modern society. It's like Alphonse Mucha and his commercial art, which is much more persistent and recognizable than his epic works like the Slav paintings.

 

[David Conwill]

And who can forget Loewy's Avanti

I keep trying.

his work with Stude was great.

I do love the early stuff. The '53 coupe is a masterpiece (although Studebaker stylist Bob Bourke had arguably as much or more to do with that design than Loewy).

Much as I love the designs of Loewy and Dreyfuss, I would argue that Daniel Burnham and the others who developed the first "Chicago School" of architecture paint a much clearer picture of how America sees itself even today.

-Dave

 

[LizzieMaine]

Walter Derwin Teague was no slouch either.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Hey, it's an ugly little car, but you'll never forget it. And there was sure no others like it!

I keep trying.

-Dave

 

[martinsantos]

From the article I became most impressed about the locomotive.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[David Conwill]

Hey, it's an ugly little car, but you'll never forget it. And there was sure no others like it!

I actually go back and forth on it; but you caught me at a bad time. Here's what I had to say one other time:

I go back and forth myself. But either way, I don’t think they make good traditional hot rod material. Their basic look is too modern. Just as the ‘53 Studebaker would not have looked out of place if it had been introduced in 1963, the ‘62 Avanti would not have looked out of place in 1972. Thus, I think they fall outside of the aesthetic era that I associate with HAMB traditional.

That being said, an Avanti might make a good pro-touring type build with some 17-inch gray-center mags, a lowering, and a twin-turbo, fuelie Studebaker 304 or Cadillac 500 backed up with a 6-speed and Corvette IRS.

I don’t think you can go wrong with a ‘53-‘55 Loewy coupe or hardtop. My dad had always talked about building one, and I liked the idea myself.

-Dave

-Dave

 

[Talbot]

Dave,

Agree with you on the 53-55 coupe or hardtop. I'd love to get my hands on one.

Avanti? Meh.

 

[mwelch8404]

What about Clarence Birdseye? Not really about "design"per se, but what he did for modern distribution.

 

[Atomic Age]

I think anyone responsible for designing the brand image of a cornerstone American corporation like Coca-Cola would have massive amounts of influence on modern society. It's like Alphonse Mucha and his commercial art, which is much more persistent and recognizable than his epic works like the Slav paintings.

He didn't actually design the coke bottle, he re-designed it, in fact removing some of the curve that was so distinctive about the bottle. Additionally he eliminated the iconic Coca-Cola script. The company went back to its original designs with in a few years, though they kept the "Coke" type face also, the Coca-Cola script on one side of the bottle, and the Coke type face on the other.

Doug

 

[Atomic Age]

If we are going to talk about designers who really shaped the look of corporate America, then we have to talk about Saul Bass, who had such a huge hand in the identities of so many companies in the latter half of the 20th century.

He designed the logos for:
AT&T
Avery International
Continental Airlines
Dixie
The Girl Scouts of America
Lawry Foods
Geffen Records
Minolta
Quaker Oats
Rockwell International
United Airlines
United Way
Warner Communications
YWCA

In addition to movie posters for the likes of:
Psycho
Anatomy of a Murder
Vertigo
West Side Story
The Man with the Golden Arm

And he created the title sequences for most of those films among others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Bass

Doug

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Never been an Avanti guy, or a Stude guy in genera, besides the bullet nose!

 

[Tomasso]

America's design is her architecture.............................

 

[Richard Warren]

I did not think I would live long enough for anyone to say anything good about mid-20th century American commercial design. I'm not impressed.

 

[Swing Motorman]

Very neat slideshow, but they missed the big-ticket railroad item. The S1 was spiffy, but not very useful. Loewy refined the body design of one of the finest working machines ever to grace American transportation, known simply as the GG1. When a 1935 design is still hauling passengers in 1983, now that's iconic!

The picture is of a model I have: