As the most famous industrial designer in the 20th century, his products range from airplanes, ships and trains to stamps, lipstick and cola bottles. His life is like a history of the development of American industry.

If you don't know who he is, you must have drunk such a classic Coca Cola. Yes, this Coke bottle that has survived to this day was transformed by his staff. He made Coca Cola a symbol of American culture and brought huge commercial profits to Coca Cola Company. People call him the most gifted commercial artist in the world.

In 1949, he was the first designer to appear on the cover of Time magazine. He was Raymond Rowe, the father of American industrial design.

Although he had a great influence on the United States, Raymond Lowe was actually a French. Because of the First World War, he moved to the United States in 1919. When Luo Wei first arrived in the United States, he did something similar to graphic design with his hand painting skills. It was not until 1929 that he received an order for the reconstruction of Gestetner copier, which started his industrial design.

This order requires that the company's copier be redesigned within 5 days, so that its appearance and performance can be combined in both directions. Using ergonomics and its own aesthetic concept, Lowe has transformed the ugly and clumsy machines into attractive office furniture. This makes the copier stand out in the competition and the sales volume is rising.

In this way, Rowe's talent and inspiration created today's "industrial designer" profession. Rowe's first business opened a new era of American industrial design. He started to set up his own design company in the 1930s. His business at that time included three aspects: vehicle design, industrial product design and packaging design.

Raymond Lowe has been interested in trains and cars since he was young. In fact, as early as 1908, when Rowe was 15 years old, he independently drew the sketch of the Ayrel model airplane.

In 1932, Rowe designed the Hugh Mobil car. This car is one of the first models to be praised by the American auto industry, marking a major breakthrough for the old car.

Rowe pursues the concept of "streamline and simplification", and "show beauty from function and simplicity", which drives the streamline movement in the design. In 1937, Raymond Lowe established a cooperative relationship with the Pennsylvania Railway and designed several famous models, the most famous of which is the Pennsylvania S1 steam locomotive.

The spindle shape is adopted for the front of the car, which not only reduces the wind resistance by 30%, but also gives a modern sense of high-speed movement. Compared with the traditional steam locomotive, the design of Lowe in the 1930s was undoubtedly the most avant-garde at that time.

However, due to design defects in construction machinery, only one S1 was produced. In 1949, the only S1 was demolished.

Another famous cooperation case of Rowe is the automobile design - Champion with Stoudebeck, which also has a very personal design style, streamline and simple line design.

In 1953, Studebaker Starliner Coupe and 1963 Avanti attracted attention once they appeared. Today, they are still classic cars.

In 1972, the design of Lowe won the first place in the Best Car Selection jointly sponsored by the three major automobile companies. The automobile newspaper preached: "1953 Studebaker, a long nose, little decoration, but dynamic car, is known as the classic among all cars."

In 1951, the Greyhound double decker bus was a long-distance commercial bus across cities in the United States. It transported passengers between the United States and Canada. When traveling in the United States, it was convenient and economical to take the Greyhound bus.

Loewe is different from the luxury style in the Detroit design genre. He advocates the production of fuel saving cars with low body and thin model, which is the original appearance of PD-4501. Loewe keeps the middle and rear of the body and replaces the low head of the truck, forming a new car design.

Industrial product design

In 1933, the automatic pencil sharpener designed by Lowe adopted a streamlined appearance, which became a landmark work of the design style.

In 1934, Lowe designed a new shape for the "freezing point" refrigerator. The refrigerator adopts a large arc shape, which makes it look more simple and lively; The interior of the refrigerator has also been adjusted, laying the foundation for a modern refrigerator. Once Freezing Point was listed, its annual sales volume rose from 60000 to 275000.

In addition to industrial design, in 1940, Lowe began to undertake product packaging and corporate image design, which was caused by a gamble. For a long time, the "Lucky Lottery" cigarette box was designed with green and red packaging. The president of American Tobacco Company gambled with Lowe for 50000 dollars, believing that he could not change the familiar image.

Lowe accepted the challenge and changed the green background to white, which reduced the printing cost and increased the visibility of cigarette packs. The replaced cigarettes have achieved great commercial success, and their image has been maintained for more than 40 years.

In 1954, under the entrustment of Coca Cola Company, Rowe hoped to become a brand "recognized by 90% of the world's people", and optimized the design of Coca Cola bottle.

He gave the bottle a more feminine curve, removed the embossed pattern, and used clear white words "Coke" and "Coca Cola". In 1960, Yilingge designed the first aluminum can of Coca Cola.

In 1971, when redesigning the company logo for Shell, Lowe made a brand transformation, which not only continued the shell concept of the original trademark, but also stylized it, making the visual effect more concise and powerful.

Luo Wei once explained his trademark design in this way: "I seek a strong visual shock that can make a deep impression even at a glance."

From 1967 to 1973, Lowe was employed by NASA as a resident consultant to participate in the design of Saturn Apollo and the space station. His bold design - simulating gravity space; Opening a porthole that can look far into the earth - enabling the three astronauts to live in the space station for up to 90 days.

Raymond Lowe designed the International Space Station for NASA's Skylab program in the 1970s. George Muller, the head of NASA, wrote in his thank you letter to Lowe: "It's unbelievable that astronauts live relatively comfortable, energetic and efficient lives in the space station! All of this is due to your innovative design. This design is the perfect result of your deep understanding of human needs."

It is not difficult to see from his life's works that Rowe combines streamline with European modernism and establishes a unique design language. He combines design and commerce perfectly and endows industrial design with new vitality.

The greatest contribution of Germans to design is to establish modern design theory and education system, and have carried out a lot of experiments. Then the greatest contribution of American modern design is to develop industrial design and make it professional and commercial. It is no exaggeration to say that Rowe's life is a brief history of the development of American industrial design. Rowe deserves the title of Father of Industrial Design.