Forget marketing witticisms. It was the visual sleekness and efficiency of household objects that enticed American consumers to buy them in the 1930s. Their popularity propelled these objects, and the industrial designers behind them, to iconic status. Today, the 3D items that peppered midcentury homes have shifted to 2D with the U.S. Postal Service's Pioneers of American Industrial Design (Forever) stamp series. As part of the consumer cycle that borrows and builds on iconic industrial archetypes, the series features the work of 12 designers including Peter Müller-Munk’s Normandie pitcher for Revere Copper and Brass Company in 1935; Henry Dreyfuss’s Model 302 Bell telephone; Gilbert Rohde’s 1933 modernist clock designed for the Herman Miller Clock Company; and Greta von Nessen’s Anywhere lamp for Nessen Studio in 1951. • usps.com
