The range of subjects covered by this our third number is an arresting illustration of how broad
and deep is the concern of art with industry and life. Our contributors are a catholic company.
All speak with authority, and each has something fresh to say. Raymond Loewy, one of the fore
most American industrial designers, speaks as an engineer. His watchword is efficiency and his
aim economy. He rescues the word "streamline" from the jargon of current journalese. As manu
facture is chiefly a process of moving matter from one place to another, business is mainly moving-
people. Travel has become much more comfortable, but most journeys take as long today as they
did thirty or forty years ago. There is now an awakened interest in speed and streamline is the
answer to air resistance. On the other hand, Duncan Grant is an imaginative painter who looks at
industry from the outside. To him most of the objects of industry are dull, and he sees how much
livelier they might be if the pioneer work of the late Roger Fry were revived and encouraged.
Raymond McGrath's article on the use of glass in building helps us to realize how grudgingly we
accept the free gilt of daylight. Governments no longer tax windows, but industry still frequently
pays a self-imposed tax to the powers of darkness. Even our playthings show strong influences of
design shaping their form, and no better example can be given than the evolution of the pieces of
chess, a game which probably holds the interest of men more widely than any other. It must be
attributed to the credit side of the Fascist account that in Italy strong government support and en
couragement has been given to young architects and modern designers. The account of two schools
of Industrial Art in Italy is both interesting and timely. All those who have anything to do with
printing should read carefully Herbert Bayer's clear statement of reasons why a strong effort should
be made to bring the design of printed matter into harmony with surrounding expressions of other
forms of life. Heirlooms can become a burden, and the rich heritage of printing tradition is in danger
of becoming a strait-jacket.
Industrial Arts
