Danielle Shapiro

Danielle Shapiro is the author of John Vassos: Industrial Design for Modern Life based on original, archival research. John Vassos (1898 - 1985) was a brilliant artist, a pioneering industrial designer and educator, and a leader of his profession as the first Chairman of the IDSA. John Vassos: Industrial Design for Modern Life examines his five-decade career, and it situates John Vassos among the most influential designers of his generation. Vassos, a Greek immigrant, designed RCA radios, televisions, computers, phonographs, and broadcast equipment - creating well-desinged, user friendly, haptic media technologies decades before Apple. Dr. Shapiro has a Ph.D. from the department of Communications Studies from McGill University. She discovered Vassos as a curatorial assistant at the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design through his critical illustrations of modern life and was surprised by his prolific contribution to American design, a story that she pieced together as Vassos's first biographer. You can learn more at: www.johnvassos.com