Pratt Mourns Louis Nelson, Industrial Designer and Chair Emeritus of the Rowena Reed Kostellow Scholarship Fund

Louis Nelson, the industrial designer and graphic artist who championed design through his involvement with the Rowena Reed Kostellow Scholarship Fund at Pratt Institute, passed away on December 4, 2024. He was 88. 

A Washington Post obituary notes Nelson’s “fondness for bold lines and bright colors” over his “eclectic half-century career, operating outside the spotlight while shaping the look of places, spaces, products and packaging.”

Nelson, who received his BID and MID at Pratt, was known for his design of the Korean War Veterans Memorial mural wall in Washington, DC. His extensive body of work also includes design of the restaurant at the Statue of Liberty, the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal for the United Nations, the Nutrition Facts panel for American food packaging, and wayfinding for major US airports and the New York City subway. He received Pratt’s Alumni Achievement Award for Career Achievement in 2013.

For 14 years, Nelson chaired the Rowena Reed Kostellow Scholarship Fund at Pratt, which honors the teaching and methodology of the late industrial design educator, for whom Nelson had worked as an assistant during his time as a graduate student. His leadership included galvanizing support for the publication of the book Elements of Design: Rowena Reed Kostellow and the Structure of Visual Relationships (Princeton University Press, 2002), based on a book project Kostellow had begun work on before her death. Nelson and his wife, Judy Collins, the singer-songwriter, received the Rowena Reed Kostellow Award in 2005.

The following interview with Nelson was published in the Fall 2008 “Art in Times of War” issue of Prattfolio.

Pratt People: Louis Nelson, BID ’58, MID ’64

Principal of Louis Nelson Design and designer of the Korean War Veterans Memorial mural wall, which earned him an Industrial Designers Society of America silver award for design excellence. Photographed in front of the mural wall, located on Washington, DC’s National Mall.

Tell us about the mural wall.

The Korean War Veterans Memorial’s dark gray granite wall mural is etched with thousands of faces of soldiers to commemorate those who served in what many have described as “the Forgotten War.” The mural is a portrait of the common soldier inspired by war photographs from the National Archives and the Air and Space Museum. Ghostlike images emerge from the granite to present a racially diverse group of men and women who were part of the land, sea, and air forces in Korea from 1950 through 1953. I designed the wall so that these faces will look out onto visitors who then see themselves reflected in the mural’s composition.

How do memorials help those who are left behind?

We make pilgrimages to these memorials to search for meaning and renew our commitment to a higher purpose, to somehow resolve our inner conflicts and urge ourselves forward to find a better way. On the morning of the dedication, a vet came up, hugged me, and said that his life had changed in an instant, 40 years after the war. He realized, through this memorial experience, the price he paid was the loss of his youth and innocence.

You also designed the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Medal as a kind of memorial.

Yes, the medal recognizes those men and women, military and civilian, who lost their lives while serving in peacekeeping operations for the United Nations—the number has risen to more than 2,400 now. I designed the medal as a crystal ovoid to be held in the hand of the parent or spouse of the lost peacekeeper. Clear crystalline glass represents the purity of life, its fragility as well as its strength, all attributes inherent in the physical structure of the material holding timeless symbolic meaning across all cultures.

You have toured formerly war-torn areas such as Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Croatia with UNICEF. For what purpose?

My wife, Judy Collins, [singer-song writer] is the UNICEF International Representative to the Arts. We visited this part of the world, as well as Vietnam, to see how families’ lives have been affected by UNICEF’s education, health, nutrition, and children’s programs. We also learned about the terrible tragedy of left-behind antipersonnel land mines—and the loss of limbs, sight, and quality of life that are still the result. Would you believe that some of these mines were manufactured to resemble flowers and Coke cans so they are more desirable?