Teague (company)

Teague

Type	Private
Founded	1926, New York, NY
Headquarters	Seattle, Washington, United States
Number of employees	300 (2013)
Website	teague.com

Teague is a global design consultancy headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Established in 1926 by Walter Dorwin Teague, Teague is known for its design contributions through the disciplines of product design, interaction design, environmental design, and mechanical design. The privately held company is particularly recognized for its work in aviation and consumer goods, with clients such as The Boeing Company, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung and Panasonic.

Teague's early role in consumer culture is most popularly associated with designs such as the first Polaroid camera, the UPS truck, Texaco service stations, and the Pringles Chips canister; while Xbox and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner headline Teague's post-2000 design work.

In 2006, Teague celebrated its 80th anniversary in the Frank Gehry-designed Experience Music Project in downtown Seattle.

In the mid-1920s, Walter Dorwin Teague (1883 to 1960) was one of a group of individuals interested in pioneering the design of products for manufacturers as a distinct occupation. The illustrator and typographer departed an advertising career at New York-based Calkins & Holden to establish Teague as a sole-proprietorship in 1926. As one of the first industrial design firms of its kind, Teague's value proposition was to improve the appearance, function and sales of clients' products, thereby strengthening businesses' brand image while translating the era's cultural context through tangible objects.

Although product design culture was still limited to the wealthy through the 1930s, Teague pursued strategic relationships with businesses offering products to benefit the masses, citing a loss of concern for appearance in manufacturing when the Industrial Revolution replaced craftsmanship with machinery. In 1927, Teague was commissioned by Eastman Kodak to design cameras, and by the following year had co-located with Kodak in Upstate New York. During what would become a thirty-year relationship, Teague designed some of Kodak's most iconic products, including the Baby Brownie, Super Kodak, Kodak Medalist, and the Kodak Bantam Special, one of the most popular cameras ever produced. The Baby Brownie had outsold any other camera ever made.