Raymond Loewy (Design Heroes)

In an increasingly design-conscious age, this series provides introductions to the work of a varied roster of leading 20th-century designers, graphic designers and architect/designers. This book examines the work of the industrial designer, Randolph Loewy. Raymond Loewy (1893-1986) designed the Lucky Strike cigarette pack, the Greyhound bus, the Coke dispenser and the interior of Skylab, was the first to streamline cars and fridges, and is most famous for spawning a host of baroque imitations of his revolutionary car design work for Studebaker in the late 1940s. Though French-born, he came to represent a certain kind of modern affluence which epitomized American culture in the rich years immediately following World War II. To some his success was based on his "unerring vulgar taste", for others he had a "genial knack for pushing himself to the front", but more than any other figure, he can safely be said to have designed the post-war material world in the United States and thus, by extension, everywhere else.