Sara Little

▶ Click here for an article on Sara Little from Metropolis Magazine.

Please see COMMERCIAL and BRAND EXPORATION portfolios for specific reference to my work with Sara.

Sara Little Turnbull (born Sara Finkelstein, September 21, 1917) is an American product designer, design innovator and educator. She advised corporate America on product design for more than 50 years, and has been described as "corporate America's secret weapon." She was one of America's first female industrial designers and one of the first women to succeed in a post-World War II design industry dominated by men. She helped to create essential products from medical masks to CorningWare, and founded and led the Process of Change: Laboratory for Innovation and Design at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. The Sara Little Center for Design Research was formed to promote design education and to illustrate items of cultural design, beauty, and utility. She approached design as a self-trained cultural anthropologist and believed that a thorough understanding of the fine-grain details of how different cultures behaved was key to successful and innovative business solutions. Sara Finkelstein was born in Manhattan and raised in Brooklyn. Her mother introduced her to the use of color and form by arranging fruits and vegetables in bowls. She attended Parsons School of Design on scholarships from the School Art League of NYC and the National Council of Jewish Women, graduating in 1939. Because she was 4'11" in height, she acquired the nickname "Little Sara," and then began to call herself Sara Little professionally. She married James R. Turnbull in 1965, but used the name Sara Little for her entire career.