Frankensteins at Work

After trying their hand at improving everything from paper clips to superliners, U.S. industrial designers finally got around to their fellow beings. At a Manhattan meeting of the Society of Industrial Designers last week, they held a contest to design a "functional man," or, as they put it, "an animal which would be a better solution to the very environmental problems which man has created."

First prize (a strictly functional Leghorn pullet) went to Tom Currie of Southport, Conn, for his "man"--a creature with a flat, streamlined head atop a flying-saucer body. He had an aspirin tablet for an eye and a built-in cigarette, but "no ears--radar perception; no stomach --no limit on drinking; no legs--walking, what's that?" Second prize (an egg) was won by Julian Everett of Manhattan for a cork-calved, swivel-eared robot whose right hand was a "clam digger for getting," his left a "built-in money box for keeping." Among the items of special equipment: an inner-view mirror (to keep an eye on his ulcers).

Aside from such obvious improvements as atomproof skins and double gullets for double martinis, there was a secretary with a Coca-Cola bottle permanently attached to her mouth, and type on the ends of her fingers (no typewriter needed). Raymond Loewy Associates drafted a more efficient streetcar rider. He had a head with a hook for straphanging, and a spiked nose to hold newspapers. Another idea: an efficient carpenter with a ripsaw nose, who merely plugged his head in to the nearest light socket, so he couldn't forget his tools.

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