Today let’s remember Raymond Loewy, the Father of Industrial Design. (1893-1986)
He is the man behind the Lucky Strike cigarette pack, Coca-Cola bottle and vending machines, the Greyhound bus, the S1 Locomotive, logos for Shell and Exxon.
Loewy lived by his own famous MAYA principle – Most Advanced Yet Acceptable. He believed that, “The adult public’s taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if the solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm.”
Loewy designed cars, buses, locomotives, the Air Force One Livery, and even NASA’s Skylab. He worked as a consultant for more than 200 companies and creating product, graphic and packaging designs.
“Success finally came when we were able to convince some creative men that good appearance was a salable commodity, that it often cut costs, enhanced a product’s prestige, raised corporate profits, benefited the customer and increased employment.” – Raymond Loewy in his book Industrial Design.
TIME put him on the cover in Oct. 31, 1949, a period when he was “the dominant figure” in the field, which had ”mushroomed from a groping, uncertain experiment into a major phenomenon of U.S. business.”
Visit his page for detailed information on his life and work: raymondloewy.com