Oliver Lundquist

Oliver Lincoln Lundquist (September 20, 1916 – December 28, 2008) was an American architect and industrial designer who headed the team which was responsible for the design of the United Nations logo and the Q-Tip box.

Industrial design and military service He was hired by Raymond Loewy's industrial design firm in 1937 while he was a senior at Columbia, and was trained by the well-known architect himself. For the 1939 New York World's Fair, Lundquist was part of a team that developed a wind tunnel effect showing smoke traveling over a Chrysler Air Flow car for that company's pavilion at the fair. He created a "magic talking car" that spoke about Chrysler's car with the voice of the host of Major Bowes Amateur Hour. He created a "frozen forest" of steel palm trees with refrigerant inside to demonstrate Chrysler's automotive air conditioning system. At the Loewy firm, he developed the blue-and-white Q-Tip box, described by The New York Times as "one of the most widely known of product packages."''

The blue color that appears in the background of the insignia was chosen to be "the opposite of red, the war color". The original color the group chose in 1945 was a gray blue that differs from the current United Nations flag.

Architecture As an architect, Lundquist became a partner in the firm Von Der Lancken & Lundquist, with Julian von der Lancken, and later with Lundquist & Stonehill.

He designed or renovated buildings and offices for Bache & Co., Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Hoffmann–La Roche and Sotheby Parke Bernet and at the former Kodak Building in Manhattan, in addition to work on hospitals, schools and buildings for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

Lundquist died at age 92 on December 28, 2008, of prostate cancer at his home in the Yorkville, Manhattan neighborhood. He and Betty had three children, Jill Lundquist, Timothy Wade Lundquist (April 16, 1949 - July 8, 2016) and Eric Cooper Lundquist, and six grandchildren - Sarah Botstein, Abby Botstein (1973-1981), Benjamin Lundquist, Adam Lundquist-Baz, Tessa Lundquist and Molly Lundquist-Baz.

He served on the board of trustees of now-defunct Franconia College in New Hampshire while his son Tim was a student there. In 1970 his daughter, Jill, was living with Leon Botstein, now the president of Bard College. The Franconia board appointed Botstein, then 23, as president of the struggling college, making him the youngest college president in US history.