Topic: Raymond Loewy

Raymond Fernand Loewy (5 November 1893 – 14 July 1986) was one of the best known industrial designers of the 20th century. Born in France, he spent most of his professional career in the United States where he influenced countless aspects of North American culture. Among his many iconic contributions to modern life were the Shell logo, the Greyhound bus, the S-1 locomotive, the Lucky Strike package, Coldspot refrigerators and the Studebaker Avanti. His career spanned seven decades.

Loewy was born in Paris in 1893, the son of Maximilian Loewy, a Viennese journalist, and Marie Labalme. An early accomplishment was the design of a successful model aircraft which then won the James Gordon Bennett Cup in 1908. By the following year he was selling the plane, named the Ayrel. He served in the French Army during World War I, attaining the rank of captain. Loewy was wounded in combat and received the Croix de Guerre. He boarded a ship to America in 1919, with only his French officer's uniform and fifty dollars in his pocket.

In Loewy's early years in the U.S., he lived in New York and found work as a window designer for department stores, including Macy's, Wanamaker's and Saks in addition to working as a fashion illustrator for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. In 1929 he received his first industrial design commission to modernize the appearance of a duplicating machine by Gestetner. Further commissions followed, including work for Westinghouse, the Hupp Motor Company (the Hupmobile styling), and styling the Coldspot refrigerator for Sears-Roebuck. It was this product that established his reputation as an industrial designer. His design firm opened a London office in the mid 1930s. It still operates.