Arens, Egmont, 1889-1966

Egmont Hegel Arens, industrial designer, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on 15 December 1889, the son of Franz Xavier and Emma (Huegal?) Arens. He was a leading design pioneer in the fields of packaging and plastics and is credited with introducing "appetite appeal" in packaging design. From 1911 to 1914 he attended the University of New Mexico and in 1915-1916 the University of Chicago. Before beginning his career in design, he was a sports editor for the Albuquerque (N.M.) Tribune-Citizen, a bookseller in his own Washington Square Bookstore in New York's Greenwich Village (1917-1923), a salesman of fine printing produced by his own Flying Stag Press (1918-1927), and editor for the periodicals Vanity Fair (1922-1923) and Creative Arts (1925-1927), and the printer, publisher, and editor (1919-1925) of the artistic and literary periodical Playboy, which published works by D.D. Lawrence and Max Weber, among others.

In 1929 he entered the field of industrial design as the founder and director of the division of industrial styling at Calkins and Holden, and in 1935 he established his own New York design office. As an industrial designer his activities included product design, plastics research, product development, color consultation, office and industrial interior design, store planning, and package and trademark design. He designed business machines, electrical appliances, radios, furniture, toys, and boats for such diverse clients as Reynolds Metals, Philip Morris, A & P, and the Columbian Rope Company.

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