Today’s post features before and after photographs of Air Force One, taken in 1963 to showcase its recent redesign by Raymond Loewy (1893-1986), in collaboration with President John F. Kennedy.
At the time, Loewy was a prominent and established industrial designer, known for his work with the Pennsylvania Railroad, Boeing, Studebaker, Greyhound Lines, Coca-Cola, Le Creuset, and many other notable brands and corporations.
In addition to photographs and news clippings documenting the redesign, the Hagley Library’s Raymond Loewy Archive (Accession 2251) also includes Loewy’s written recollections of his time spent initiating and negotiating the redesign with Kennedy and United States Air Force general Godfrey T. McHugh. You can read those remembrances, written in February 1967, after Kennedy’s assassination, by clicking here. To view more images from the career and life of Raymond Loewy, an inventor, engineer, and designer whose work covered everything from automobiles and airplanes to Lucky Strike cigarette packaging, dinnerware, and corporate branding, visit this collection’s page in our Digital Archives by clicking here.