Combinations and arrangements Everything designed has an element of arbitrariness in its form. Loewy described how groups of his designers used to go about designing a new model automobile. Different groups were given different tasks, such as the front and rear of the car, and the conceptual work began, to be cut off at some predetermined time by deadlines that were imposed at the outset. After a time, there were "piles of rough sketches," and Loewy saw the design proceed as follows: Now the important process of elimination begins. From the roughs, I select the designs that indicate germinal direction. Those that show the greatest promise are studied in detail, and these in turn are used in combination or arrangements with one another. A promising front treatment can be tried in combination with a likely side elevation sketch, etc. From this a new set of designs emerges. These are then sketched in detail. After careful analysis, they boil down to four or five. Raymond Loewy, The Evolution of Useful Things Useless work on useful things drawing
Such an unholy alliance Something was wrong, according to Raymond Loewy, who admitted that, "with few exceptions, the [competitors'] products were good." He was "disappointed and amazed at their poor physical appearance, their clumsiness, and...their design vulgarity." He found "quality and ugliness combined," and wondered about "such an unholy alliance." ...Loewy was also "shocked by the fact that most preeminent engineers, executive geniuses, and financial titans seemed to live in an aesthetic vacuum," and he believed that he could "add something to the field." But, not surprisingly, the people he approached were "rough, antagonistic, often resentful." Raymond Loewy, The Evolution of Useful Things On TasteWe might as well make them beautifulRestrained beauty aesthetics
On Theft How do we know what’s the right direction [for computers to take]? Ultimately it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done, and then trying to bring those things in to what you’re doing. Picasso had a saying: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” And we (at Apple) have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. And I think part of what made Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to have been the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hasn’t been for computer science, these people would all be doing amazing things in life in other fields. And they brought with them — we all brought to this effort — a very liberal arts air, a very liberal arts attitude, that we wanted to pull in the best we saw in these other fields into ours. Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview A fresh focus of power