This is an article about the life and work of the iconic American industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss (1904 – 1972):
“Industrial design was barely getting started when the 1929 Depression struck. America’s economic collapse may have meant calamity for millions of people, but for designers it spelled golden opportunity. Savage competition became the rule. To stay in business, a manufacturer had to give his products new utility, new eye-appeal…”
“At 43, Henry Dreyfuss is enormously successful, a fact which he makes every effort to conceal… In designing a typewriter, he measured the fingers of hundreds of typists. In creating a new chair for plane or train, he doesn’t settle for the fact that the chair simply seems comfortable. He hires an orthopedic surgeon to advise.”
Nineteen years before this profile appeared on paper, Dreyfuss was serving as an intern for another important industrial designer: Norman Bel Geddes (1893 – 1958).
In 1955 the designer wrote this book, which is still in print today: Designing for People
Click here to read about the designer Gustav Jensen.
