4 HENRY DREYFUSS 1904-1972

WHO: American industrial designer who pioneered many of the techniques of industrial design consultancy – from competitive analysis boards to ergonomic studies – that we now take for granted. Author of The Measure of Man (1959), which remains the standard work on human factors in design today.

WHAT: A dominant design role in an era regarded as the golden age of American mid-century consumerism. Dreyfuss was one of the ‘big four’ godfathers of US industrial design, but less showy than Raymond Loewy, more realistic than Norman Bel Geddes and more enduring than Walter Dorwin Teague.

WHERE: New York, New York. It’s a wonderful town. Dreyfuss was rescued from a poor immigrant background by the New York Society for Ethical Culture in the Twenties, which gave him a scholarship to study theatre design under Bel Geddes. Much later he turned down a one-man show at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, saying he only wanted his products on display in Macy’s, and then not permanently.

WHY: Based on his early experiences, Dreyfuss never forgot that design of products or environments should fit the user’s real needs. A forerunner to The Measure of Man was titled Fitting Machines to People. Dreyfuss always steered a middle ground; he was as suspicious of the gaudy styling culture of the Detroit car makers as he was of the Euro-centric minimalists of the East Coast design establishment.

ICONS: The Bell 300 telephone (1937), the Hudson Locomotive (1938), the 1943 redesign of Time magazine, the first circular thermostat produced by Honeywell (1953); the Polaroid automatic land camera (1963).

INFLUENCE: In the competitive, client-chasing world of the New York design consultants, Dreyfuss and his closest rivals effectively created the model of the modern design business, complete with pitches, retainers, press releases, hyperbole and hordes of itinerant freelance design staff following the work around town.

ODDBALL: Like the French composer Eric Satie, Dreyfuss only wore brown suits throughout his entire career. He thus became known as ‘the man in the brown suit’. In death, as in life, he was also an enigma. He died a healthy man in a suicide pact with his wife, who was suffering from cancer.

SOUNDBITE: ‘Henry Dreyfuss’s life illustrates that, although difficult, the realisation of personal success while serving society’s needs is possible’ – Russell Flinchum. ©