Loewy, Raymond (Fernand)

Raymond Loewy.

(credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.)

(born Nov. 5, 1893, Paris, Fr.—died July 14, 1986, Monaco) French-born U.S. industrial designer. After obtaining an advanced degree in electrical engineering, he immigrated in 1919 to New York City, where he worked as a fashion illustrator and designer of department store window displays. He opened his own design firm in 1929, and in the 1930s and '40s he designed a variety of household products with rounded corners and simplified, “streamlined” outlines. A refrigerator he designed for Sears, Roebuck & Co. (1934) won first prize at the 1937 Paris International Exposition. In later years his highly functional designs for everything from locomotives to soda dispensers helped shape U.S. industrial design.

Loewy, Raymond (Fernand) (1893–1987) industrial designer; born in Paris, France. A World War I hero with an engineering degree, he came to New York in 1919 to pursue free-lance illustration. A flamboyant personality and keen businessman, he started his own international design firm (1929), working for Coca-Cola, United Airlines, Exxon, IBM, Greyhound, and others. Memorable are his 1947 Studebaker Starlight Coupe, the Coca-Cola bottle, and the Lucky Strike Cigarette package. In later years he designed Air Force One and NASA space equipment.