Influential Designers

Frank Lloyd Wright

   Frank Lloyd Wright is a very famous designer.  He is known to have designed 1141 works. One cool fact; Wright is American (which was greatly shown in his works. He didn't believe in the Greek or Renaissance designs, he believed in democracy).  Born in Richland Center, Wisconsin.  Frank first began to realize his love of architecture after working on his uncle's farm in the summers of his youth.
   While working under architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee, Wright drew up the design for his first building, the Lloyd-Jones family chapel.  Working for Silsbee led to Frank to his eventual working with mentor Louis Sullivan.
   Frank's abilities and talents are credited to his own philosophy of "Form and Function are One", after adding his mentor Sullivan's philosophy of "Form Follows Function."
   Wright opened Taliesin in 1932 so that the young designers with aspirations of working with him could do so, for a fee or course. This building was first lit by gas lamps.  While working at the Taliesin Fellowship, Frank Lloyd Wright created my favorite of all his works, Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania. 
   The American Institute of Architects recognized him to be "the greatest American architect of all time."
   The man did not only design.  He was known to be a great writer and philosopher.  He authored twenty books, and also authored many many articles.  Although he is best known for this building designs ranging from homes to offices, to churches.
    I am sure there is an abundance of people, like me, who would absolutely love to one day own a house even similar to the ones designed by Wright.  His work is really impressive in my eyes and I love all the straight lines involved in his work.  Not only is the Falling-water House (pictured below) is my favorite house that I have ever seen.  The location in the woods right on the water is amazing.  It could not have been designed better in my mind.  I love all the balconies looking out into the woods, and the multileveled features.
http://www.cmgww.com/historic/flw/bio.html
http://www.franklloydwright.org/fllwf_web_091104/Wrights_Life_and_Work.html

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Henry Dreyfuss

Henry Dreyfuss  was born in New York, New York on March 2, 1904.  Like Luigi, Henry was also an industrial designer.  Instead of cars though, Dreyfuss started out designing for Broadway.  When he was doing his work for Broadway he was only 17 years old.  Eight years later, he opened his own industrial design office.  At this office he had clients such as Bell Telephone, AT&T, American Airlines, Polaroid, Hoover, and many more.  In the late 30's Dreyfuss worked for John Deere designing farming equipment.  What caught my eye the most about Henry was his work with Lockheed Martin.  Lockheed Martin makes the C-130, which is the aircraft that I work on in the Air Force.  Henry Dreyfuss worked with them to convert military planes to civilian aircrafts.  He worked my my rival company Boeing and designed the interior of the Boeing 707.  Interestingly enough as well, Henry Dreyfuss was a founding father of the American Society of Industrial Design.
Tragically, Henry and his wife committed suicide together in 1972, two years after my parents were born...

http://www.biography.com/articles/Henry-Dreyfuss-9279245
http://www.henry-dreyfuss.com/

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Luigi Colani

Luigi Colani was born in Berlin on August 2 1928.  He is known to have over 5000 industrial and consumer products. In his early years he studied sculpture and aerodynamics.  I can see a lot of the aerodynamic influences in his works.  There are many accented curves which make his pieces very pleasing to look at.  Taking a look into the car world a bit, he was very influential to the company Fiat.  I am a bit of a car fanatic, so when I learned that the Colani Alfa was the first sports car to drive around the Nurburgring in under 10 minutes, I was very impressed.  in 1984, Luigi was considered to be the number one industrial designer in Japan.  In the year of my birth, 1989, the Museum of Modern Art featured Colani's SONY headphones.  A few years later, he got into computers and had a lot of success there as well.  In overview, Luigi Colani is a very versatile designer.

http://www.colani.org/luigi_colani_Product_design_museum/Introduction.html
http://www.colani.ch/historie.html