Brooks Stevens, King of the Industrial Designers

Brooks Stevens was one of America's greatest industrial designers, but he never received the recognition that he deserved because he never left his native Milwaukee (or "Sauerkraut Bay", as some so-called sophisticates dubbed it at the time) for world design centers like New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. If Stevens has been remembered at all, it was for the dubious distinction of coining the phrase "planned obsolescence."

What has been forgotten is that Brooks Stevens created at least 2,000 products large and small in his lifetime from the first electric steam iron to the Miller Beer logo to the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile to the civilian version of the military Jeep(ster).

Planned Obsolescence

"Planned Obsolescence" was the title of a speech that Brooks Stevens gave at a 1954 advertising conference. The popular meaning of the term, thanks to cultural critic Vance Packard's bestselling 1960 book "The Waste Makers", was the manufacture of products that had been pre-planned to be non-functional after a period of time or product usage. To Stevens, planned obsolescence was a more benign concept of consumerism, where consumers merely desire "to own something a little newer, a little better, and a little sooner than necessary." Stevens looked upon "obsolete" products as those being sold to a second-hand market not dumped straight into a trash heap as was Packard's strong insinuation.

Notable Products

Many of Brooks Stevens' industrial designs have been taken for granted like most everyday usage products. For example, he designed the wide-mouth peanut butter jar and the first electric clothes dryer with a glass window.

In 1938, Stevens invented the forerunner of the snowmobile, a vehicle that steered through snow via toboggan-like skis. Back then, this product was sold primarily to the Russians through the New Deal's lend-lease program.

In 1942, Stevens designed the first Jeepster all-metal station wagon for Willys Motors. This was the first commercial civilian application of military vehicle design.