Raymond Loewy

After a brief but promising career as a fashion illustrator, Raymond Loewy dedicated his talent to the field of industrial design. Loewy’s creative genius was innate, and his effect on the industry was immediate. He literally revolutionized the industry, working as a consultant for more than 200 companies and creating product designs for everything from cigarette packs and refrigerators, to cars and spacecrafts. 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.”

A popular lecturer as well, Loewy spoke at institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, and the University of Leningrad. He founded three design companies: Raymond Loewy and Associates, New York; Raymond Loewy International, London; and Compagnie de I’Esthetique Industrielle, Paris. His writings include The Locomotive: Its Aesthetics (1937), the autobiography Never Leave Well Enough Alone (1951) and Industrial Design (1951).

Loewy spent over 50 years streamlining everything from postage stamps to spacecrafts. His more famous creations include the Lucky Strike cigarette package, the GG1 and S1 locomotives, the slenderized Coca-Cola bottle, the John F. Kennedy memorial postage stamp, the interior of Saturn I, Saturn V, and Skylab, the Greyhound bus and logo, the Shell International logo, the Exxon logo, the U.S. Postal Service emblem, a line of Frigidaire refrigerators, ranges, and freezers, and the Studebaker Avanti, Champion and Starliner.