He was born Colin Fulcher but died, of depression, as Barney Bubbles, leaving a legacy as one of the greats of album-jacket design, writes Alice Rawsthorn in the New York Times (1/7/09). His credits include memorable works for Elvis Costello, the Damned and Ian Dury & The Blockheads, but Bubbles rarely took credit: "Shy, introspective and fragile, Bubbles shunned publicity and seldom signed his designs. On the rare occasions he did so, it was mostly under an alias. He credited himself on one record sleeve by drawing a dog, and cited his tax code on another."

Fortunately, Bubbles is now getting his due in book by Paul Gorman called, "Reasons to be Cheerful," a reference to the Ian Dury song. Strangely, Barney didn't do the artwork for that record -- Peter Blake did. The title hardly captures his apparently unhappy life, either. But it does reflect an era in which "ingenious graphic designers like Bubbles" used "the 12-inch square of an LP" as a "canvas on which they could express their own ideas, as well as music." It wasn't as though he was the first or only one creating great album-jackets, "but his work was unusually ambitious in its scale and intricacy."

For example, he not only designed album-jackets for Hawkwind, he also "designed every visual element of Hawkwind's gigs, down to the drum kits, and his sleeve of the band's 1971 album, 'In Search of Space,' unfolded into an elaborate cutout of a hawk." He also had an "obsessive work ethic ... in the studio seven days a week, generally starting in the afternoon and working through the night, and often sleeping there." Sadly, Bubbles failed to transition into furniture, film and painting, and went down suicide. Happily, his work continues to inspire anyone who remembers the days when "the sleeves of their favorite album or single came to mean as much as the music." (images here) ~ Tim Manners, editor

Before the late Patrick Norton came along, furniture was merchandised by category instead of by lifestyle, reports Stephen Miller in the Wall Street Journal (12/20/08). It used to be that the couches, tables and chairs were each grouped separately. But Patrick helped Ethan Allen change all of that by "presenting themed rooms that allowed customers to visualize how furniture would look in their own homes." Ethan Allen "was also perhaps the first brand of furniture to insist that dealers be committed solely to a single brand."

Later, at age 59, Patrick joined La-Z-Boy, transforming what had been "a niche player into one of the top 10 U.S. home-furnishings manufacturers, and the most popular furniture brand in the country, according to Home Furnishings News." Patrick turned La-Z-Boy away from celebrity ads featuring Joe Namath and a theme of "Dad deserves it, he works all day." That approach succeeded in selling more of its reclining "motion furniture" than its competitors combined. The problem was, the brand was pigeonholed as a product for "Dad's den" only.

Attempts at line extensions, such as massagers and swivels, "only reinforced the Joe Sixpack image." So Patrick created lines of "stationary" couches and chairs with "an emphasis on sleek design." As Patrick explained to Fortune magazine, "We made them part of the human race, pieces of furniture rather than contraptions." He also upgraded and expanded showrooms, and further diversified through mergers with other furniture makers, taking La-Z-Boy from $155 million in sales to a peak of "more than $2.2 billion in 2001." Patrick Norton was 86. ~ Tim Manners, editor

Betty James was flipping through a dictionary when she came across the perfect name for her husband's toy idea -- "Slinky," as reported by Dennis Hevesi in the New York Times (11/25/08). Betty, who died November 24th at 90, "put her finger on the word slinky because she thought it best described the sinuous and graceful movement and the soft sound of the expanding and contracting metal coil her husband, Richard, had fashioned."

Richard had his inspiration while working "at a shipbuilding company in 1943 when a torsion spring fell off a table and flipped end over end on a ship's deck." The couple manufactured "400 Slinkys and, just before Christmas 1945, persuaded Gimbels department store in Philadelphia to let them set up a ramp in the toy department." They sold out their first 400 Slinkys in just 90 minutes, at a dollar each. Since then, some 300 million Slinkys have been sold, "enough to circle the earth 150 times if stretched, which they shouldn't be."

Richard wigged out and joined a "religious cult" in Bolivia in 1960, but Betty continued to run the company until selling it to Poof Products in 1998. The Slinky enjoyed renewed popularity in 1995 when it re-introduced "Slinky Dog" based on a toy featured in "Toy Story," and sold "more than 800,000 ... that year." Throughout her long career, Betty was adamant about keeping the price of the Slinky low, telling the New York Times, "So many children can't have expensive toys, and I feel a real obligation to them." ~ Tim Manners, editor

When Barney Kilgore joined the Wall Street Journal in 1932, the newspaper had a circulation of just 32,000 and, "like everything else connected with Wall Street, it was suffering," writes Richard J. Tofel in the Wall Street Journal (11/10/08). However, by 1967, when Barney died at 58, "the Journal's circulation had grown ... to just under one million, on its way to more than two million today." This wasn't just coincidence. Barney Kilgore "broke new ground in forms and styles of newspaper writing, humanizing articles, making them more accessible by beginning them with anecdotes rather than dry facts, employing humor to tell stories."

Barney also brought order to the chaos of the Journal's front page, initially by devising the paper's "What's News" summary, "the first daily news summary of the kind in an American newspaper." Later, he added "Washington Wire" column, as well as "The Outlook" and the "Tax Report." Yes, he also came up with the idea of running "those quirky front-page stories known inside the paper as the 'a-hed.'" But he was also a great reporter, "one of the most incisive and intelligent chroniclers of the New Deal." Franklin Roosevelt actually advised other reporters to read Barney's work to improve their understanding of the economic issues of the day.

At age 34, Barney turned his attentions to the paper's business side, as general manager, where "he and his associates finally achieved something of which others had only dreamed: building a truly national newspaper." Perhaps most famously, he faced down General Motors, which had pulled its advertising after the Journal leaked its 1955 designs, and in so doing sharpening the distinctions between editorial and advertising. Ultimately, Barney's innovations were more famous than he was, as the Journal noted in his obituary. However, he was not only the "life force" behind the Wall Street Journal, but also "the inventor of much of what constitutes modern journalism today." ~ Tim Manners, editor

In 1997, when Martin K. Tytell was 83, he signed a 10-year lease on his famous typewriter-repair shop in Lower Manhattan, writes Bruce Weber in the New York Times (9/12/08). "I'm an optimist, obviously," he told the Atlantic Monthly at the time (link here). "I hope they do survive -- manual typewriters are where my heart is," he also said. "They're what keep me alive." Mr. Tytell retired just three years later, and sadly, died September 11, 2008 at age 94. But his legendary life as "Mr. Typewriter," and owner of the Tytell Typewriter Company, lives on.

In his heyday, Martin Tytell "rented, repaired, rebuilt, reconfigured and restored typewriters in a first floor shop at 116 Fulton Street ... where a sign advertised, 'Psychoanalysis for Your Typewriter.'" During his 70 years in business, he "worked on typewriters that could reproduce dozens of different alphabets appropriate for as many as 145 different languages and dialects ... He made a hieroglyphics typewriter for a museum curator and typewriters with musical notes for musicians." He created a keyboard for amputees and "a reverse-carriage device that enables typewriting in "right-to-left languages."

Mr. Tytell estimated that he had about "2 million type faces in stock, and of his customers he once said, "We don't get normal people here." However, his greatest legacy may be his role in the Alger Hiss trial in the 1950s. Hiss was a former state department official accused of "passing secret information to a Communist agent." Mr. Tytell proved that the typewritten evidence being used against Hiss was not necessarily produced by Hiss's typewriter -- that a typewriter's imprint, unlike fingerprints, could be forged. Oh, and one more thing about Martin Tytell: "An error he made on a Burmese typewriter, inserting a character upside down, became a standard, even in Burma." ~ Tim Manners, editor

"He did know that it was a big thing, but I don't know that he realized he changed snacking in America in terms of natural foods," says Nell Newman in a New York Times piece by Kim Severson (10/1/08). "He probably would have laughed at that," she adds. Nell is speaking, of course, of her father, Paul, whose decision to allow Nell to "create an organic spin-off" of his Newman's Own line of salad dressings and popcorn (must-see video here), helped change the way Americans view organic products. "His visibility put a quality imprimatur on organic products," says Caren Wilcox, formerly of the Organic Trade Association.

Before Newman's Own Organics launched in 1993, "major food producers were reluctant to develop organic versions of products for fear consumers might question their traditional offerings," according to Peter Meehan, a company co-founder. "Because he was willing to do it, he helped allay the fears that corporate America had about coming out with both organic and conventional items," says Peter. The story goes that Nell convinced her father to launch Newman's Own Organics after surprising him with a Thanksgiving dinner "secretly made with organic ingredients." She also presented him with "a detailed marketing plan."

"Everything had to be something that my father, who was born in 1925, would look at, recognize and eat," she explains. "We wanted people of his generation to say, that really tastes good -- and then say, oh, it's organic." Some of the items, such as the "pretzels and sweet dark orange chocolate bar were specially" for Paul. Others, like the Fig Newmans, actually built the market for organic fig paste. According to Nell, Paul's favorite item was the "Hint 'O Mint Newman-Os," made without trans fat. Much of the profit from the products, of which there are now more than 150 -- is donated to "organic farming organizations." ~ Tim Manners, editor