Jay Doblin

Jay Doblin
Jay Doblin portrait
Born(1920-12-10)December 10, 1920
DiedMay 11, 1989(1989-05-11) (aged 68)
EducationPratt Institute
Occupation(s)Product Designer (1942–1954),
Raymond Loewy & Associates
Dean (1955–1969),
IIT Institute of Design
Co-founder (1964–1972),
Unimark International
Co-founder (1978–1985),
Jay Doblin & Associates
Years active1942–1988
Notable work
  • JC Penney "Good, Better, Best"
  • Alcoa aluminum chair

Jay Doblin (December 10, 1920 – May 11, 1989) was an American industrial designer and educator, best known for his contribution to the field of design in particular his work related to systems thinking, design methods and design theory in general. Throughout his professional career he worked with some of the most important design firms of their time, including Raymond Loewy Associates, Lippincott & Margulies, and Unimark International, which he founded together with Massimo Vignelli and Bob Noorda.[1]

Doblin was born in Brooklyn, NY and graduated from Pratt Institute in 1942. He worked for Raymond Loewy from 1942 to 1955 directing the Frigidaire account and designing vending machines for Coca-Cola, razors for Schick and fountain pens for Eversharp. Between 1955 and 1969, and after the resignation of Serge Chermayeff, he served as director of the IIT Institute of Design, a design school founded in 1937 in Chicago by László Moholy-Nagy, a former Bauhaus teacher. After his tenure as director, he stayed involved with school as a professor. Doblin was president of The American Society of Industrial designers (ASID) in 1956 and of the Industrial Design Educators Association (IDEA) in 1962. In 1981 he founded his strategic design planning consultancy, Doblin Archived 2008-02-28 at the Wayback Machine with Larry Keeley. In 2004, Jay Doblin was awarded the medal of the AIGA. Doblin Archived 2008-02-28 at the Wayback Machine became part of Monitor Group's Archived 2012-10-30 at the Wayback Machine innovation practice in 2007, and was acquired by Deloitte Archived 2008-02-28 at the Wayback Machine in 2013.

  1. ^ "Massimo Vignelli Canon". 18 November 2010.