NEW YORK, NY.- Sir Kenneth Grange, a British industrial designer whose cameras, food mixers, trains, taxis, parking meters, pens, alarm clocks, lamps and razors were among the most celebrated objects of modernist, post-World War II design, died July 21 at his home in London. He was 95.
His wife, Apryl Grange, confirmed the death.
Spare, aesthetically pleasing, with a near maniacal focus on ease of use, Grange’s creations modernized the look, feel and routine of daily life, especially in Britain — from waking up to switching on a lamp, to a tidy shave to a purée for breakfast and then the commute to work by taxi or train.
“When I think of his work, I do not immediately think of the designer but of the millions of users that have been beneficiaries of his care and thought,” Sir Jony Ive, the former head of design for Apple, wrote in the foreword to “Kenneth Grange: Designing the Modern World,” which was published this year. “He created products that assumed such a rare cultural significance that they ultimately became icons.”
Grange, a founder of the global design firm Pentagram, began his career in the late 1950s, when consumers started seeking out more lively, colorful and sleek products than the dowdy and chunky objects that personified consumer and home goods from the Victorian era well into World War II, when manufacturers were focused on the war effort, not smart design.
His first major project, in 1958, was an upside-down, teardrop-shaped parking meter. Its stark design and simplicity attracted the attention of consumer goods manufacturers such as Kenwood, which hired him to redesign its once-popular but out-of-style Chef mixer.
“Grange’s redesign of the Chef introduced a sharper, modern silhouette with a streamlined body and arm, softly curved at the corners,” British curator and cultural commentator Lucy Johnston wrote in “Kenneth Grange: Designing the Modern World.”
He also added weight.
“We read a lot into the weight of things, so when you pick something up, in that moment you make an assumption about its value,” Grange said in “The Brits Who Designed the Modern World,” a 2016 BBC documentary. “Slightly heavier says longer life, better value, so l asked them to use a particular material that is heavier and certainly weightier in the fingers.”
The updated food mixer became an instant status symbol among consumers, particularly women, who then purchased them as presents for their newlywed friends.
Grange commuted to work in two of his most memorable designs: the London Taxi TX1, a streamlined update of the city’s famous black cab, and the InterCity 125 train, an aerodynamic marvel in bright yellow that was credited with reinvigorating interest in rail travel in Britain.
His other hits included several cameras for Kodak, most notably the Brownie 44A, the first to use an all-plastic lens, and the Instamatic 33, a point-and-shoot that used easy-to-insert film cartridges; the Parker 25 fountain pen, with a sleek steel design; the Anglepoise Type 75 desk lamp; and Wilkinson Sword razors.
To Grange, every object of daily life was eligible for an upgraded design. His wife recalled the daily struggle of walking through London with him. He’d spot a new angle on a bus stop overhang and then immediately cross the street to inspect it.
“There is no doubt that domestic harmony is endangered by having a designer about,” Grange told The Daily Telegraph in 2012. “If you are good at your job you cannot avoid looking at everything and, given half a chance, affecting it. I even have an opinion about a tea towel — I just cannot help it.”
Kenneth Henry Grange was born on July 17, 1929, in London. His father, Harry Grange, was a constable for the Metropolitan Police. His mother, Hilda (Long) Grange, worked as a machinist at a spring factory well into her 70s.
He grew up, he recalled, in “a good old-fashioned house, a bacon-and-eggs kind of house.” It was “all brown and cream,” he added, with “daffodils on the wallpaper.”
His mother, he said, was responsible for one unconventional piece of décor.
“Instead of having a lamp next to the chair in the front room, like most people had, we had a great big spring that was barely liftable,” Grange told The Daily Telegraph. “It was her pride and joy. She was somebody completely in love with manufacturing and was an influence on me — her work ethic particularly.”
As a teenager, Grange worked at the spring factory and studied drawing and lettering at the Willesden School of Art and Crafts. After graduating in 1947, he worked for several architects, including Jack Howe, who also did industrial design work on bus shelters and lampposts.
Grange opened his own design firm in 1958. He founded Pentagram in 1972 with graphic designers Colin Forbes, Alan Fletcher and Mervyn Kurlansky, and architect Theo Crosby. He won the Duke of Edinburgh’s Prize for Elegant Design, later renamed the Prince Philip Designers Prize, twice.
He was knighted in 2013.
Grange’s marriages to Assunta Santella in 1952 and Philippa Algeo in 1971 ended in divorce.
He married Apryl Swift in 1984. She is his only immediate survivor.
Grange designed and built his own coffin. He got the idea after his mother died in 1997.
“I was at the undertakers looking through a terrible green catalog of coffins, all of which were awful and expensive, but we had to pick one,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “I thought to myself how ridiculous it is that I am spending my life haranguing people to live with well-designed things and when I go, it could be in one of these dumb boxes.”
He built a bookshelf that matched the shape of his body.
“This one fits me like a glove, and the lid is behind it — it’s just a matter of taking the bookshelves out, screwing the lid on and away we go,” he said. “The only problem will be getting whoever is responsible to follow my instruction.”
That would be his wife, Apryl.
“It’s a bit macabre, isn’t it?” she said. “So I think it might have to stay as a very useful bookcase.”
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.
