The Coke bottle is a masterpiece of scientific, functional planning. In simpler terms, I would describe the bottle as well thought out, logical, sparing of material and pleasant to look at.
The public may admire a corporation for its impressive size. Who in the United States doesn't? But when a business, however gigantic, gets smug enough to believe that it is sufficient only to match competition on trivial points instead of leading competition in valid matters, that business is becoming vulnerable to public disfavor.
In every phase of the automotive industry, certain factors have been more important than all others in relation to the way the automobile has looked. Phase One is really the Ford story. Function and production were the most important considerations. The automobile was an invention, and it looked like one.
I've been accused of being a shell designer - you start with a machine and enclose it. But in many cases, the shell is essential. A locomotive without a shell would be nonfunctional.
My early colleagues and myself helped create the life styles of Americans and, by osmosis, of the rest of the world. I found it difficult to reconcile success with humility. I tried it first, but it meant avoiding the very essence of my career - total exhilaration and the ecstasy of creativity.
The world is filled with archaic objects - mailboxes which look like alarm boxes, banks which look like places to break out of rather than places to enter.
