The Four-Letter Code To Sell Anything | Derek Thompson | Atlantic | 15th December 2016

The prolific industrial designer Raymond Loewy “affected the daily life of more Americans than any man of his time”, claimed Cosmopolitan with forgivable exaggeration. He designed tractors for International Harvester, cookers for General Electric, a livery for Air Force One. He thought consumers were curious about new things but also fearful. The optimal products were “bold, but instantly comprehensible”; for which he coined the acronym “maya”, meaning, “most advanced yet acceptable”