Collectors & Aficionados
Raymond Loewy. From Coca-Cola to trains the design that catches you
Raymond Loewy, a naturalized American originally from Paris, was a genius designer who transformed products into logos by using symbols and signs to evoke memories of the past through contemporary language.
The Coca-Cola bottle marked a turning point in the world of communication, effectively transforming a product into a logo. It’s not necessary to read the words “Coca-Cola” to know it's a Coca-Cola. The same thing happened with Studebaker cars from the 1940s and 1950s and with the magnificent electric locomotives of the Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1 from the 1930s. The genius of the designer, in these cases as with many others, is that of a naturalized American originally from Paris named Raymond Loewy.
Loewy made the classic Coca-Cola bottle contemporary and increased its strength by working the logo and colours
For him, the representation of a brand or product is a process in which symbols and signs look for memories in the subconscious of the observer, evoking memories of the past through contemporary language. This train of thought was to influence the entire advertising industry and the visual identity process for three generations. One of his sentences summarizes the simplicity of his philosophy: “Between two products equal in price, function and quality, the better looking will outsell the other”. If we dwell on his design works, we cannot help but think that they have always existed.
