Henry Dreyfuss

Henry Dreyfuss (1904 Brooklyn, New York - 1972 South Pasadena, California), American industrial designer.

Related Topics:
1904 - Brooklyn, New York - 1972 - South Pasadena, California - Industrial designer

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As one of the celebrity industrial designers of the 1930s and 1940s, Dreyfuss dramatically improved the look, feel, and usability of dozens of consumer products. As opposed to Raymond Loewy and other contemporaries, Dreyfuss was not a stylist: he applied common sense and a scientific approach to design problems. His work both popularized the field for public consumption, and made significant contributions to the underlying fields of ergonomics, anthropometrics and human factors engineering.

Related Topics:
Raymond Loewy - Ergonomics - Anthropometrics - Human factors engineering

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Until 1920 Dreyfuss studied as an apprentice to theatrical designer Norman Bel Geddes, his later competitor, and opened his own office in 1929 for theatrical and industrial design activities. It was an immediate and long-lasting commercial success. As of 2005 his firm continues to operate as Henry Dreyfuss Associates with major corporate clients.

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Significant original Dreyfuss designs include:

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• the "Western Electric 302" tabletop telephone for Bell Laboratories (1930, produced 1937-1950)
• the classic Westclox "Big Ben" alarm clock (1939)http://clockhistory.com/westclox/company/ads/benseries.html
• the New York Central Railroad's streamlined "Twentieth Century Limited" locomotive (1938)
• the popular "Democracity" model city of the future at the New York World's Fair of 1939
• the "500" desk telephone (1949), the Bell System standard for 45 years
• the "Princess" telephone (1959)
• the spherical "Model 82 Constellation" vacuum cleaner for Hoover (1954) which floated on an air cushion of its own exhaust.
• the "Trimline" desk telephone (1965)

In 1955 Dreyfuss wrote "Designing for People", a good-humored autobiography which remains a classic of the field and features his "Joe" and "Josephine" simplified anthropometric charts. In 1960 he published "The Measure of Man," an ergonomic reference.

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Dreyfuss was the first President of the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA). In 1972, with he and his wife both terminally ill, they chose to deliberately end their lives.

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