On entering Mr. Earl's unique independent design firm across the street from the GM Tech Center, people could see a client roster board, directly below, reading like a "who's who" of American industry of the 1950s. Manufacturers who were giants in their particular fields turned to Harley Earl to design some of their most important products...products of immense diversity. 

1961 DETROIT NEWS newspaper story, below, chronicles another unique design/engineering firm Mr. Earl established:

Designs by Harley Earl Outside GM

The "Net Income" monetary figures for Harley Earl, Inc., featured below, summarize client fees of this car architect's business concern outside his responsibilities overseeing the design of all the industrialized transportation products for the largest company in the world. "Mr. E." as some called him in his day, had his independent design firm across the street from the GM Tech Center in Warren, Michigan which had a staff of less than seventy five employees. But don't be confused by its small size or the fact it didn't make as much money each year as some of the other large industrial designers of the era. The most important design story, in dollars (numbers and finance) was the one taking place back across the street, styling GM's products which includes but is not limited to product design, color studio, exhibit design, interior design, packaging design, logo design, etc. 

After a person finds out how influential Detroit's No. 1 auto designer really was (don't forget this man was American industry's first super star designer...creating the position of "vice president of design" in which all car companies would incorporate in the future), then it becomes much easier to figure out another important facet of Harley Earl's story. Not only was he responsible for how GM's products were designed, but this risky auto innovator played the largest hand in how all worldwide auto makers, after WW II, would go on to make their cars using his "already proven and time honored" car design techniques and principles (which was a new production method) he had originally introduced to Detroit in the first place beginning in the late 1920s.

What comes out in the end of this man's story? Hands down, he was one of the world's foremost industrial design leaders (proven in numbers and finance). This quite man just never liked to talk about this area, knowing perhaps how much tension along with how much attraction would then be focused on him. But, this does not mean he did not wish to be understood someday in the future, long after he was gone, for his true role in the design world and the American auto industry. 

Unfortunately, since Harley Earl never told his story or wished to share any intimate details of his rise (he never lectured and was also under contract to GM until the day he died in 1969) during his twilight years, one of the most important "designer's stories" has been held back or left out of the entire strata of the last 75 years of industrial design history! 

Read the page below to better understand why Harley Earl and Walter B. Ford merged their separate design firms into one in 1964. Today, Ford & Earl Design is still located in the Detroit suburbs of Troy, Michigan.

Quoting Shakespeare and somehow relating it to quality design precepts (read the 1955 article written for GENTRY magazine below) details the value of why any designer today, utilizing aesthetics, should always keep an open-mind and never become complacent when dealing with artistically-innovative products. Naturally, Harley Earl applied his design philosophy to other areas beside Automobile Styling (a.k.a., Automotive Design). From every aspect attributed to locomotion; such as land, sea, air and space as well as architecture, to interior design and exhibit design, too. 

Various clients of Harley Earl's industrial design firm: 

Alcoa, US Rubber Co., Convair Division of General Dynamics, Fairchild Engine and Airplane Company, Westinghouse, Bissell, Argus Camera—Division of Sylvania, 3M, Michigan Bell, Shwayder Bros. Incorporated, General Foods, Briggs Manufacturing Co., Clark Equipment Co., Zippo, Stouffers Restaurants, Strohs Brewery, Sun Rubber, Libby Owens Ford, Corn Products, Evans Products Co., Lyon, Inc., Nabisco, Ohio Rubber, Owens Corning Fiberglass Co., Parker Pen Co., Tappan Stove Co., Hamilton Beach Co., Simoniz, Eastern Airlines, Wear-Ever Aluminum, Inc.