Henry Dreyfuss

Henry Dreyfuss (March 2, 1904 – October 5, 1972) was an American industrial designer. He is known for designing the Western Electric Model 500 telephone, the Westclox Big Ben alarm clock, and the Honeywell T87 Round Thermostat.

Career

Dreyfuss, a native of Brooklyn, New York City, is one of the celebrity industrial designers of the 1930s and 1940s who pioneered his field. Dreyfuss dramatically improved the look, feel, and usability of dozens of consumer products. Sometimes compared to Raymond Loewy and other contemporaries, Dreyfuss was much more than a stylist; he applied common sense and a scientific approach to design problems, making products more pleasing to the eye and hand, safer to use, and more efficient to manufacture and repair. His work helped popularize the role of the industrial designer while also contributing significant advances to the fields of ergonomics, anthropometrics and human factors.

Dreyfuss began as a Broadway theatrical designer. Until 1920, he apprenticed under Norman Bel Geddes, who would later become one of his competitors. In 1929, Dreyfuss opened his own office for theatrical and industrial design. His firm met with commercial success, and continued as Henry Dreyfuss Associates for over four decades after his death.

Academic Affiliations

Dreyfuss became a trustee of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1963. For many years prior, he had been a member of the Engineering Division faculty and had lectured annually on industrial design. After taking a seat on the board, he encouraged the trustees to seek eminent architects for new buildings at the institute.

Dreyfuss was also a member of the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). New York Central Railroad's streamlined Mercury train, both locomotive and passenger cars (1936) New York Central Hudson locomotive for the 20th Century Limited (1938) American Airlines branding (1960s) Polaroid SX-70 Land camera (1972)

Later life and death In 1955, Dreyfuss wrote Designing for People. A window into Dreyfuss's career as an industrial designer, the book illustrated his ethical and aesthetic principles, included design case studies, many anecdotes, and an explanation of his "Joe" and "Josephine" anthropometric charts. In 1960 he published The Measure of Man, a collection of ergonomic reference charts providing designers precise specifications for product designs. In 1965, Dreyfuss became the first President of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). In 1969, Dreyfuss retired from the firm he founded, but continued serving many of the companies he worked with as board member and consultant.

In 1972 Dreyfuss published The Symbol Sourcebook, An Authoritative Guide to International Graphic Symbols. This dictionary was based on an archive of thousands of symbols that Dreyfuss had amassed by distributing surveys to American clients and corporations, as well as a range of international organizations. It was a feat to organize and present such a range of data cogently in an age before computers. The review also designated Dreyfuss's publication to be an “authoritative guide” to symbols and an “essential reference.” Continued interest in this project is evidenced by a subsequent, posthumous paperback reprint in 1984. The Sourcebook has also served as a reference for artists, most notably in paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat in the 1980s.

On October 5, 1972, Henry Dreyfuss (aged 68) and his wife and business partner Doris Marks Dreyfuss (aged 69) committed suicide together. Mrs. Dreyfuss was terminally ill at the time. The couple was survived by their son, John A., and their two daughters, Ann and Mrs. George C. Wilson Jr.