Looks at the creative process behind the design of more than thirty contemporary automobiles.

This rich automotive history will engage car buffs for hours of learning and diversion, for the book differs from most chronicles of the evolution of the horseless carriage by focusing on one particular, and fascinating, aspect: the styling of cars--their 'overall shape, ornamentation and resulting aura.' Resting on the premise that 'styling sells, ' the authors' large-format, heavily illustrated account goes into luscious detail about important designers, influential design trends, and noteworthy (in their aesthetic appeal) car models throughout the entire 100-year history of the automobile. A distinctive addition to technology collections that all public libraries should consider for purchase. - Brad Hooper; 306p - YA: For browsers and reluctant readers, as well as YAs interested in cars. JC-

This book provides a comprehensive history of American print automobile advertising over a half-century span, beginning with the entrenchment of the "Big Three" automakers during the Depression and concluding with the fuel crises of the 1970s and early 1980s. Advances in general advertising layouts and graphics are discussed in Part One, together with the ways in which styling, mechanical improvements, and convenience features were highlighted. Part Two explores ads that were concerned less with the attributes of the cars themselves than with shaping the way consumers would perceive and identify with them. Part Three addresses ads oriented toward the practical aspects of automobile ownership, concluding with an account of how advertising responded to the advance of imported cars after World War II. Illustrations include more than 250 automobile advertisements, the majority of which have not been seen in print since their original publication.

The true story of Raymond Loewy, whose designs are still celebrated for their unerring ability to advance American consumer taste. Born in Paris in 1893 and trained as an engineer, Raymond Loewy revolutionized twentieth-century American industrial design. Combining salesmanship and media savvy, he created bright, smooth, and colorful logos for major corporations that included Greyhound, Exxon, and Nabisco. His designs for Studebaker automobiles, Sears Coldspot refrigerators, Lucky Strike cigarette packs, and Pennsylvania Railroad locomotives are iconic. Beyond his timeless designs, Loewy carefully built an international reputation through the assiduous courting of journalists and tastemakers to become the face of both a new profession and a consumer-driven vision of the American dream. In Streamliner, John Wall traces the evolution of an industry through the lens of Loewy's eclectic life, distinctive work, and invented persona. How, he asks, did Loewy build a business while transforming himself into a national brand a half century before "branding" became relevant? Placing Loewy in context with the emerging consumer culture of the latter half of the twentieth century, Wall explores how his approach to business complemented—or differed from—that of his well-known contemporaries, including industrial designers Henry Dreyfuss, Walter Teague, and Norman Bel Geddes. Wall also reveals how Loewy tailored his lifestyle to cement the image of "designer" in the public imagination and why the self-promotion that drove Loewy to the top of his profession began to work against him at the end of his career. Streamliner is an important and engaging work on one of the longest-lived careers in industrial design.

From the 1920s through the 1950s, two individuals, Joseph Urban and Norman Bel Geddes, did more, by far, to create the image of “America” and make it synonymous with modernity than any of their contemporaries. Urban and Bel Geddes were leading Broadway stage designers and directors who turned their prodigious talents to other projects, becoming mavericks first in industrial design and then in commercial design, fashion, architecture, and more. The two men gave shape to the most quintessential symbols of the modern American lifestyle, including movies, cars, department stores, and nightclubs, along with private homes, kitchens, stoves, fridges, magazines, and numerous household furnishings. Illustrated with more than 130 photographs of their influential designs, this book tells the engrossing story of Urban and Bel Geddes. Christopher Innes shows how these two men with a background in theater lent dramatic flair to everything they designed and how this theatricality gave the distinctive modernity they created such wide appeal. If the American lifestyle has been much imitated across the globe over the past fifty years, says Innes, it is due in large measure to the designs of Urban and Bel Geddes. Together they were responsible for creating what has been called the “Golden Age” of American culture.

From the Cadillac to the Apple Mac, the skyscraper to the Tiffany lampshade, the world in which we live has been profoundly influenced for over a century by the work of American designers. Beautifully illustrated, "Design in the USA" explores the underlying history of American design over the past two centuries.