INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Volume 1, Number 5, October 1954

Jane Fisk Mitarachi (editor) INDUSTRIAL DESIGN 5. NYC: Whitney Publications, Inc., 1954. Original Edition (Volume 1, Number 5, October 1954). A near-fine original magazine with a trace of wear overall: very faint dampstain to top edge of white cover. Very Scarce in any condition-- an amazing magazine that has more information per column inch than any other vintage publication I have seen. Cover images from the Georgia Experiment¹s COMMUNICATION PRIMER by George Nelson, Charles Eames and Alexander Girard.

9 x 12 magazine with 144 pages and illustrated throughout and printed on different stocks, including an amazing variety of editorial content. Here is what the publishers wanted this magazine to accomplish: "A bi-monthly review of form and technique in designing for industry. Published for active industrial designers and the design executives throughout industry who are concerned with product design, development and marketing."

Here is former ID editor Ralph Caplan's recounting the magazines birth: "Fifty years ago, the publisher Charlie Whitney ran into Henry Dreyfuss. 'Henry,' he said, 'I'm about to publish a magazine for industrial designers.' 'Wonderful,' Henry replied. 'There are 14 of us.' Caplan remembered, "I.D. was not begun as a magazine for industrial designers, but as a magazine for anyone who had a stake in design and cared about it. This allowed a great deal of editorial latitude."

This issue of INDUSTRIAL DESIGN celebrated all the best of modern American industrial design. Includes many examples of furniture, ceramics, housewares, appliances, automobiles, buildings, radios, projectors, televisions, and many other objects designed for the burgeoning postwar middle class.   Contents include:

  • Letter from the Tenth Triennale By Jack Dunbar
  • The Georgia Experiment by George Nelson
  • What¹s Going on at Olivetti?
  • Men and Machines
  • Christmas and the Distiller
  • The Tastemakers by Russell Lynes
  • Department 817, Sears Roebuck
  • What They say about Plastic Tooling
  • Clocks
  • Sound Carries
  • Die-Cut Menagerie: Harry and Marion Zelenko
  • Cleveland¹s Transit Shelters
  • Honeywell¹s Round Thermostat
  • Design Review: furniture, ceramics, housewares, appliances, automobiles, radios, projectors, televisions, and many other objects
  • Regular features include Contributors¹ Profiles, Letters, News, Editorial, Technics, Design Review, and Manufacturers Literature.

Issue Highlights include:

The Georgia Experiment: Ray Kaiser Eames: ³The Georgia Experiment [was] how to improve the teaching of design, and art, really, it was art. George Nelson and ourselves were involved and, instead of making a report, we made a film. Or rather, we put together an hour program made up of film and slides and words and clips of other films. It was intended as an example of how material could be used to give a base for student and teacher from which to develop and expand -- not use up all the time, step by step, all of the teacher's time and the student's time. And that was shown. But we wanted examples. For instance, we chose the subject of communications, because we were all interested in that and thought we would find little clips of things that would explain it and help it. We couldn't find any. We had just a terrible waste of time looking at catalogues, trying to find films and finding that it took forty-five minutes to get to a point which was not made clearly. So that's when we decided we'd have to do something ourselves. And then later, Alexander Girard was called in and put on this -- did you ever hear of the "Sample Lesson?" It was shown first in Georgia, then at U.C.L.A. You know, it's like a club, the people who have seen it and the people who haven't seen it.²

Honeywell¹s Round Thermostat During his 44-year career, the versatile Henry Dreyfuss designed hundreds of products that have become icons of modern design, among them the Princess and Trimline telephones, John Deere tractors and Hoover vacuum cleaners, which he outfitted with headlights and bumpers to protect furniture. Other designs by Dreyfuss range from the familiar Honeywell round, wall-mounted thermostat, the Big Ben alarm clock, trains such as the 20th Century Limited for the New York Central Railroad, and the "Situation Room" for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II. Dreyfuss streamlined even his wardrobe by wearing only brown suits, stayed exclusively at the Plaza hotel while he was in New York, so clients could always find him, and reportedly missed only five days of work in twenty-two years. He enjoyed long-standing relationships with such firms as AT&T, John Deere & Co., Honeywell and Lockheed.

What¹s Going on at Olivetti? Development of the design culture at Olivetti, as seen through the opening of their New York Office and Showroom.

Letter from the Tenth Triennale 20 pages on the legendary Milan Triennale Exposition of 1954. Covers all modern media from Italy, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Israel, Spain, Germany, France, Great Britain, Sweden, Finland, Austria, the United States, and others. Also contains detailed descriptions of the 1954 Triennale's physical layout, as well as historical information about the Triennale Exposition.

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