Hans Erich Slany

Hans Erich Slany (October 26, 1926 – September 22, 2013) was a German designer considered by many to have been the first industrial designer to design plastic housings for power tools. Slany is also thought of as one of the icons of design in Germany. He founded TEAMS Design GmbH, was a Professor of Industrial Design (ID) for more than 20 years and helped found the Verband Deutscher Industrie Designer e. V. in 1959 (VDID - Germany’s version of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA)). He then helped the VDID with their entry into the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID).

Slany was born in 1926 in Esslingen, Germany and served in the armed services. He was POW in World War II. After the war, he graduated in 1948 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Hochschule Esslingen, University of Applied Sciences. Out of school he obtained a position as a product developer and assistant technical manager at Firma Ritter Aluminum GmbHEsslingen am Neckar. He then went on to the styling department at Daimler AG Sindelfingen in the Mercedes-Benz studio where he worked for 2 years. While at Daimler, he worked on the distinctive gull wing Mercedes-Benz 300SL. He also collaborated with Heinrich Loffelhardt on the Ikonette Compact Camera for Zeiss-Ikon.

In 1956 Hans Erich Slany founded his own design consultancy called SLANY Design. Soon after the founding, he approached Robert Bosch GmbH with his ideas for power tools housed in plastics. He was convinced that plastic housings would make the tools lighter, making the workers using them less prone to repetitive use injury. Also, it would reduce problems with electrical shocks. Robert Bosch GmbH even went on to publish a book called “The Influence of Ergonomics on the Design of Power Tools” based on Slany’s recommendations to share with all their engineers and to follow up a traveling exhibition (Europe only) they sponsored called, “Making work easier: Ergonomics for power tools”. He believed that the designer should be the advocate of the user of the equipment they are called upon to design.

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