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Model K KitchenAid
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Model K KitchenAid

Designer: 
Egmont Arens
Model K KitchenAid

The Hobart Manufacturing Company introduced a KitchenAid Model "K" stand mixer for $55, designed by Egmont Arens (1888-1966). The design remained virtually unchanged and is still a classic on the market. The company, now known as KitchenAid, is part of the Whirlpool Corporation.

Arens began his career in 1916 as a sports editor in Albuquerque, NM and the following year moved to New York and operated the Washington Square Bookstore. By 1929 he was advertising director for Caulkins & Holden agency, where he started an industrial styling department and headed it until it was discontinued in 1936. He also edited Playboy (No, not that one. This one was the first magazine devoted to modern art.) He designed the Good Life main exhibit in the Consumers Building at the 1939 New York World's Fair, the Higgens ink bottle, A&P packaging including 8 o'clock coffee (Still ticking!), and the Philip Morris trademark.. In 1944, Arens was one of the 15 original founders and first Secretary of the Society of Industrial Designers (SID), a predecessor organization of IDSA.

Hobart was founded in Troy, OH by engineer Herbert Johnson who introduced an 80 quart commercial baking dough mixer in 1915 on which he had worked since 1908.

Hobart introduced a 65 pound domestic version in 1919, named the Model "H" the KitchenAid when a housewife tester commented, "I don't care what you call it, but I know it's the best kitchen aid I have ever had." It was sold door to door for $189 and was on the market until 1927. A number of alphabetical designs followed in sequence--G,F,M,A, and R from 1927 to 1932.

Sources: 
100 Years of Design consists of excerpts from a book by Carroll M. Gantz, FIDSA, entitled, Design Chronicles: Significant Mass-produced Designs of the 20th Century, published August 2005 by Schiffer Publications, Ltd.