Kenneth Grange, one of Britain’s best known industrial designers, has died. His work ranged from the cone-nosed Intercity trains in the 1970s, bus shelters and the London black cab, to kettles and food mixers for Kenwood, razors for Wilkinson Sword, cameras for Kodak and pens for Parker.
‘Probably more than any other designer, Grange helped to drag Britain into the modern age’, the Financial Times’ design critic Edwin Heathcoate wrote in 2023.
Starting his career assisting architect Jack Howe, inventor of one of the first ATMs, Grange went on to complete National Service as a military draughtsman before turning pencil and sketchpad to the exhibition stands and graphics of the Sports and Homes pavilions at the Festival of Britain in 1951. In 1972 he co-founded the agency Pentagram in 1972, balancing the other partners’ expertise in graphic design with his product knowledge.
Grange worked on all aspects of the Intercity 125 for British Rail, still in use today, including the aerodynamic form, the exterior and interiors.
In 2011 the London Design Museum staged the retrospective Kenneth Grange: Making Britain Modern and for last ten years, he has been design director of British lighting brand Anglepoise.
