he has been placed over the heads of his enemies to
direct the finance of the state, and by the practical
interpretation of his dreams, to save them from famine.
His task has been lightened by the closer co-operation
of industryin itself an outcome of the forces of com
petition. Not so long ago each type of industry was a
specialized field. A man was a marine engineer, a civil
engineer, and so forth.
To the invention of the aeroplane can be credited the
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break-down of this exclusiveness. This new machine
had to be developed by men with no previous experience
or specialized training for the job. It was something
on which every established rule had to be tried afresh.
For the first time men were obliged to face a transport
problem from a new angle. They had avoided the
effort until that moment by making a railway train out
of a stage coach on railsby turning a horse carriage
into a motor car through the substitution of an
engine for horse powerstill placing it in the horse's
traditional dragging position although it actually pro
pelled from behind.
The aeroplane borrowed the motor engine, but its
structural principles could follow no existing form of
transport. The science of aerodynamics was a new
science.
And, seeing that the air was becoming a serious com
petitor, not only on speed but on appearance, the
older forms of transport turned to it for inspiration.
To-day the exchange of ideas between one industry
and another is universal and invaluable.
The consultant designer has come, and come to stay.
He acts as a bridge between alien industries, and in his
objective position as consultant is the chief condition
of his usefulness to industry.
A designer working permanently inside a firm, or
even for too long a period in association with only one
firm, loses this power of objective thought. The
atmosphere of tradition is so compelling and so
strong that he becomes a disciple of the firm and the
firm's way of doing things. He reads the trade papers
relating to his own particular type of product and has
no interest in others.
The consultant designer knows that the study of one
set of problems will often provide the best stimulus for
the solution of another. He is called upon to switch
from designing a cosmetic pack to a standardized unit
in a chain of petrol-filling stations; from a better-
looking pencil sharpener to a speed record-breaking
locomotive; from a domestic refrigerator to a cross
country bus; from an easy chair to a ferry boat.
This ability to seize on the essentials of a problem,
whatever its nature, is the normal working outfit of a
consultant designer, as a glance through the pages of
Raymond Loewy's "Case Book" shows.
In this article three solutions of the allied problems of
speed transport only have been taken; in two cases
with the illustrations of the original models besides
the new designs.
In designing the new K4s locomotive Raymond Loewy
worked, as Consultant Designer, in close co-operation
with the engineering department of the Pennsylvania
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One of the entertaining studies prepared in Raymond Loewy's studio
to show the empyric ways in which designers began to practise
streamlining before the principles of aerodynamics were understood.
