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A Short History of Design Leadership
Thanks for the article. Always enjoy reading about Raymond Loewy!
My pleasure, and thanks for reading. Glad you enjoyed the article. Loewy has been a hero of mine since college. I always wanted to be like him when I grew up :-)
Great article, Michael !
Thank you, Anton. I was doing some research for this speaking engagement and it naturally turned into an article.
Huh, that was interesting, I liked it!
Thanks for reading, Eric. Reading so many articles about design leadership prompted me to do a little research into these historical figures. There is a lot of talk out there about how design is getting a seat at the table, but inrember from my art and design history lessons 20+ years ago in college that this already happened. Perhaps we just forgot for a time?
Michael, I've read your article several times so it must be thought provoking. I like the point you made about how these early pioneers had little, if any, training as designers, but they had talent and skills that took them into the realm. No doubt there are larger backstories than you can manage in a few paragraphs.
You left out one of the greatest of the greats: Henry Dreyfus. Of all the designers of his era, Dreyfus was the one who truly examined user-ability of designs---by the actual users, not merely the corporations he had as clients. Of the books written by these designers "Design This Day" Teague, "Never Leave Well Enough Alone" Loewy and "Designing for People" by Dreyfus, Dreyfus's is the one the reader/designer will return to, again and again.
Interesting. But Harley Earl was hardly the first design leader. Peter Behrens was almost 20 (!) years earlier and designed a few iconic products - and didn't stop there but also designed the entire corporate identity of AEG and was probably the first design leader to have a say in most of what we would call "product strategy" today. Granted, he was never formally an employee. He is in my opinion too important to leave out when talking about the history of design leadership.
Thank you, Mrog! You have given me someone to do more research on. I was not aware of Behrens.
and of course I should have included Eliot Noyes!