Ralph Lysell

Ralph Lysell 1945

Ralph Lysell , actually Rolf Åre Nystedt (* 1907 ; † 1987 ) was a Swedish designer who u. a. was involved in the creation of Ericsson's Ericofon telephone .

The time in the USA

Ralph Lysell's wooden model of the Ericofon from 1941

The Ericofon in its final form from 1956

At the age of sixteen, Ralph Lysell went to the United States to live with his emigrated mother and stepfather. However, the stepfather rejected him, so that Rolf was left on his own from an early age. He changed his first name to Ralph and adopted his mother's maiden name. He married for the first time when he was seventeen, and there were to be seven marriages in total. He received his technical training at Columbia University , at the same time he trained boxing because he wanted to be a professional boxer. He designed and built some extremely streamlined cars that were technically way ahead of their time. A series production never came about.

Lysell as a employed designer

After his stay in the USA, Ralph Lysell came to Germany and became a test driver at Mercedes-Benz . Through Mercedes he got back in touch with Sweden and when the Second World War broke out he stayed there. In 1939 he was hired by the Swedish telephone manufacturer Ericsson. There he created the first wooden models for a phone that was to become one of the greatest successes for Ericsson, the Ericofon , which only came onto the market in 1956.

Lysell's own design company

Lysell soon felt imprisoned at Ericsson and so he started his own company in Stockholm , AB Industriell Formgivning . The orders came from Ericsson, Volvo and Electrolux , among others , but many things got stuck in the sketching stage, such as the proposal for a bus with the driver's seat at roof height to give passengers a clear view. In general, it seemed, Lysell wanted to work mainly with sketches, ideas and suggestions; following a project to production readiness was not his thing. He began to neglect his clients and in 1947 the company went bankrupt .

This was followed by a few years in Paris , after which he worked for some time in Norway , where he designed a small car and a lifeboat. But this time, too, there was no economic success. During the 1960s, he sought employment with Electrolux as a draftsman, not an engineer. Ralph Lysell was a man of contrasts.

literature

• Lasse Brunnström (ed.), Svensk industridesign, en 1900-talshistoria . Norstedts Förlag, Stockholm 1997, ISBN 91-1-970332-5 .