Raymond Loewy

Biography

Born November 5, 1893, in Paris. After serving in the French army in the First World War, he moved to the United States in 1919.

The turning point came in 1929. Sigmund Gestetner, head of a mimeograph maker, asked him to redesign the casing of a duplicating machine. This job was the starting point of his career as an industrial designer. In 1934 he designed the Sears "Coldspot" refrigerator^※1, and when it broke sales records, the recognition spread that design could determine how well a product sells.

He went on to lead his own firm and design an enormous number of products, and died in Monaco on July 14, 1986.

Works

His representative works cross fields: the Lucky Strike package of 1942, the corporate logos of Shell and Exxon, the streamlined locomotives of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Greyhound buses, and Studebaker automobiles (such as the Avanti). He is also known for his long collaboration with Studebaker.

In his later years he also worked for NASA. From 1967 to 1973 he was involved in the habitability and interior design of the space station Skylab, studying the conditions under which people could live for long periods in a cramped space. The livery of the presidential aircraft Air Force One is also his work.

In Japan he is widely known for designing the package of the cigarette brand Peace. His autobiography, Never Leave Well Enough Alone, was published in Japanese under the title 口紅から機関車まで ("From Lipstick to Locomotive"), after his own description of his firm's work as ranging "from lipstick to locomotives" (translated by Aiichiro Fujiyama, Gakufu Shoin 1953, later Kajima Institute Publishing 1981).

The MAYA principle

The most famous idea Loewy left behind is MAYA (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable). It holds that there is a limit to the novelty consumers can accept, and that the designer's job is to aim just inside that limit.

However excellent a novelty may be, if it completely discards familiar cues of form and function, people react by rejecting it. Innovation must therefore be carried out while keeping recognizable elements. The principle continues to be cited not only for industrial products but also in the design of software and services.