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Never Leave Well Enough Alone »

Book cover image of Never Leave Well Enough Alone by Raymond Loewy

Authors: Raymond Loewy, Glenn Porter
ISBN-13: 9780801872112, ISBN-10: 0801872111
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Date Published: December 2002
Edition: (Non-applicable)

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Author Biography: Raymond Loewy

Raymond Loewy (1893—1986) was born in France and came to America in 1919. After dressing department store windows and illustrating fashion magazines, he established his own design firm in 1930 and worked as an industrial designer into his eighties. Glenn Porter is director of the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware, and author of The Rise of Big Business, 1860-1920.

Book Synopsis

Raymond Loewy (1893-1986) was one of the pioneers of industrial design, responsible for the "streamlining" of cars and locomotives, the redesign of the Lucky Strike cigarette package, and many other staples of American consumer culture. This book—part memoir and part design manifesto—was first published in 1951, and was designed by Loewy himself (it includes many b&w photos and is in a small format: 6.25x5.25"). A new introduction by Glenn Porter, director of the Hagley Museum and Library (Wilmington, Delaware), sets the historical context. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

New Yorker

An autobiography by one of the leading industrial designers in this country . . . Mr. Loewy tells of his youth in France, his coming to America after the first war, his initial success as a fashion artist, and the dawn of industrial design and his part in it . . . The book is instructive, brash, cocksure, occasionally funny, sometimes vulgar, and always honest.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the Johns Hopkins
Editionxiii
Part 1
Chapter 1Corporal Loewy3
Chapter 2Adolescence15
Chapter 3Sex and Locomotives39
Chapter 4Fashion Illustrator51
Chapter 5The Crusade65
Part 2
Chapter 6The Duplicating Angel81
Chapter 7Skyscraper Office91
Chapter 8American Cooking99
Chapter 9Penthouse Studio115
Chapter 10The "Me Too" Boys125
Chapter 11From Toothpicks to Locomotives133
Chapter 12Big Business145
Chapter 13Michael and Venise161
Chapter 14Viola Erickson165
Chapter 15Preparations for Postwar179
Part 3
Chapter 16The National Widget Company187
Chapter 17The Chrome and You207
Chapter 18Industrial Design and Your Life233
Chapter 19Case History257
Chapter 20The MAYA Stage277
Chapter 21The Borax Plague287
Chapter 22Design and Psychology295
Chapter 23Automobile Body Styling305
Chapter 24Reader Rides Again321
Chapter 25Keeping Fit349
Chapter 26Where To?369

Subjects