Pioneering Industrial Designer Stamps Dedication

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Stamp display at the Cooper Hewitt
Today the US Postal Service dedicated the new collection of stamps honoring twelve of the great industrial designers of America.  There were many families of descendants of these designers present.  Ralph Caplan gave a short talk about the designers and their influence.  But, an unexpected surprise for me was meeting John Teague, Sally Zildjian Teague and their children!  There was even a young Walter Teague, who is Walter Dorwin Teague's great-grandson. 

I've been in New York this week doing research and interviews on Teague for the documentary.  I've interviewed grandson, Walter Dorwin Teague III, a social worker in Maryland and learned some interesting stories about the family.  I spent some time at the MOMA library in Queens, and discovered the minutes to a conference entitled "Industrial Design: A New Profession" from 1946.  Present at that event were Teague, Raymond Loewy, and Laslo Moholy-Nagy, among many others.  In it, there is a great discussion between Loewy and Teague, where they act out a typical scenario of talking with a new client, and proposing design services to them.  It's actually not much different than what is done today, in terms of the value proposition that a designer gives a client.

On Tuesday I spent most of the day at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum library.  There I found a beautiful little booklet about the Marmon 16 automobile.  It seems that it was a sort of sales brochure, however is was small two hardcover books in a silver painted box.  I also had the pleasure of interviewing Bill Moggridge, Director of the Cooper-Hewitt and a founder of IDEO, and discussing Teague and the legacy of the early designers.

Today was the dedication of the stamps and I was able to get an interview with John Teague and talk about his grandfather and the family.  I then rushed down to 43rd St to interview author and historian, Russell Flinchum.  Russell has been studying design history much longer than I have, and he had conversations with Dorwin, who had worked alongside his father for many years.

Next there will be a visit to the Brooklyn museum, which has an impressive collection of Teague designed objects.  Then I'll be shooting locations around the city, such the office locations, where he went to school, their old home and so forth.  I'll put up some photos later. 

Meanwhile, I've set up a Teague Documentary Facebook page for the project, if you are interested in hearing the progress of the documentary production, then just "like" the page and you will get the updates as they happen as well as some images.

Comments

Mark Gyel said…
Its really impressive to work on stamp design. Tahnks for doing such a great task.
November 26, 2011 at 4:56 AM
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