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They pursued the simple principle that every object can have an ideal form which, with economy and grace, can express its function. Through centuries of trial & error many of man's simplest tools −the ax helve, the plowshare, the ox yoke −had achieved a utilitarian perfection of design. In essence, industrial design was a brave attempt to bring the same simplicity to all the goods and tools of modern living. The depression, when industrialists were willing to try anything to boost sales, gave the designers their first big chance to show what they could do.
The Lusty Child. There were early flops, but the flops were soon outnumbered by notable successes. Trim, clean-lined stoves, oil heaters, refrigerators and washing machines outsold their ugly predecessors and those of competitors. Streamlining, which had the laudable purpose of cutting down wind resistance in trains, cars, etc., became such a craze that it was even inflicted on such static objects as desk sets. Little by little the hardy, struggling band proved that their artistry could draw that prettiest curve of all to businessmen−an upward-sweeping sales curve.
Today, the infant art of industrial design is fast becoming as potent a sales force as advertising. Many big companies, like General Motors, General Electric and Westinghouse, have long since built up design departments of their own, but smaller companies, who cannot afford to do so, must depend exclusively on freelance specialists like Loewy.
With the return of the buyer's market, every U.S. manufacturer is cudgeling his brain−and the brains of designers−to make his product work better, feel better, look better and sell better than those of his rivals. This year U.S. business will spend some $500 million improving the way its products look. Of that sum, Raymond Loewy Associates expects to collect $3,000,000, the biggest gross ever. And Loewy expects that his personal income, which has averaged $200,000 for the past five years, will be boosted also.
The Shy Salesman. Suave, grey-haired, medium-sized (5 ft. 10 in.), Loewy talks in a subdued voice that is, at the same time, apologetic and compelling. His face is reposed, gentle, sad, and as inscrutable as that of a Monte Carlo croupier. Obsessively shy, he is always "Mr. Loewy" even to his longtime associates. Even to those who know him well he is something of an enigma. Said one longtime acquaintance: "After all these years, I'm not even sure that I like him!" Everything he does calls attention,-with skilled showmanship, to his work, so that observers at times get the strange feeling that he too is a design−by Loewy, of course.
Despite his shyness, he is a crack salesman who throws no artistic tantrums. Far from turning out designs with offhand sureness, he works them over painstakingly until the client is satisfied. He also has an almost hypnotic power to impress, persuade and convince the toughest tycoon. Even the American Tobacco Co.'s late George Washington Hill, who used to frighten advertising men out of their wits, wilted under Loewy's gentle suasion. He paid him the whopping fee of $50,000 just for designing a new white package for Lucky Strike in 1942 ("Lucky Strike green has gone to war").