Biography

After studying as an engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

 (1944–1950), Tallon was employed by Caterpillar France

Caterpillar Inc.

Caterpillar Inc. , also known as "CAT", designs, manufactures, markets and sells machinery and engines and sells financial products and insurance to customers via a worldwide dealer network. Caterpillar is the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas...

 and DuPont

DuPont

E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...

. In 1953, he joined Technès, the technical and aesthetic studies office founded in 1949 by the father of industrial aesthetics Jacques Viénot, and Jean Parthenay. Being rapidly promoted to Technical and Artistic Director at the agency, he became the sole director after Viénot's death in 1959.

In 1957 he enrolled at the ("School of Applied Arts") in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, and put in place the first design course in the country. In 1963, he set up the Design Department of the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs

École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs

The École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs is a public university of art and design and is one of the most prestigious French grande école...

 in Paris.

As a consultant for the US company General Electric

General Electric

General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

, Tallon designed refrigerator

Refrigerator

A refrigerator is a common household appliance that consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room...

s and washing machine

Washing machine

A washing machine is a machine designed to wash laundry, such as clothing, towels and sheets...

s and set up the Design Department of the American company.

In 1966, the Téléavia P111 portable television was put on the market against the advice of the Board. It broke the mould of TV design and was a great commercial success with a cult following

Cult following

A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...

.

In 1973, Tallon set up the agency Design Programmes. Brother-in-arms with the LIP watchmakers, he created the Mach 2000 brand of watches and chronometers. In 1974, with Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, he created a concept aircraft cabin

Aircraft cabin

An aircraft cabin is the section of an aircraft in which passengers travel. At cruising altitudes of modern commercial aircraft the surrounding atmosphere is too thin to breathe without an oxygen mask, so cabins are pressurized at a higher pressure than ambient pressure at altitude.In commercial...

 for Air France

Air France

Air France , stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, , and is one of the world's largest airlines. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance...

.

After leaving Euro RSCG, he continued to work independently. Roger Tallon died on 20 October 2011 after a long period of sickness.

Work

Tallon and his team created hundreds of products, including industrial robots for Peugeot, the apparently purposeless 8mm film camera "Veronic", the Gallic 16 and 14 Towers for the Belgian company La Mondiale – a quantum leap in machine tooling –, airport vehicles, forklifts for Fenwick

Fenwick Groupe

The Fenwick Groupe is a French engineering company, established in 1862, located in Saint-Ouen on the northern outskirts of Paris.-History:Fenwick was founded as an export company in 1862. Most of its trade was with the United States. A meeting in 1878 led to the import of American made hair...

, graphic images for Fenwick Aviation, and a slide projector for Kodak.

In the art world, Tallon worked with Yves Klein

Yves Klein

Yves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...

, César Baldaccini

César Baldaccini

César Baldaccini , usually called César was a noted French sculptor.César was at the forefront of the Nouveau Réalisme movement with his radical compressions , expansions , and fantastic representations of animals and insects.- Biography :He...

, Arman

Arman

Arman was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Pierre Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman is a painter who moved from using the objects as paintbrushes to using them as the painting itself...

 , and was contacted by Catherine Millet

Catherine Millet

Catherine Millet is a French writer, art critic, curator, and founder and editor of the magazine Art Press, which focuses on modern art and contemporary art....

, founder of the review, to create a brand

Brand

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...

 that has hardly changed to this day.

Tallon became a household name in areas including tableware, furniture, interior design, reflector lamps for the German Erco, ski boots for Salomon Group

Salomon Group

The Salomon Group is a sports equipment manufacturing company that originated in Annecy, France. The company was started in 1947 by François Salomon and his wife and son. In 1997 it became part of the Adidas group. On 2 May 2005, Adidas-Salomon announced that it had agreed to sell the Salomon...

, toothbrushes for Fluocaril, oilcans for Elf

Elf Aquitaine

Elf Aquitaine was a French oil company which merged with TotalFina to form TotalFinaElf. The new company changed its name to Total in 2003...

, and so on.

Transportation

In the transport world, Tallon took on the Mexico City Metro

Mexico City Metro

The Mexico City Metro , officially called Sistema de Transporte Colectivo, is a metro system that serves the metropolitan area of Mexico City...

 and, for Alstom

Alstom

Alstom is a large multinational conglomerate which holds interests in the power generation and transport markets. According to the company website, in the years 2010-2011 Alstom had annual sales of over €20.9 billion, and employed more than 85,000 people in 70 countries. Alstom's headquarters are...

 and the SNCF

SNCF

The SNCF , is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network...

, the Corail train

Corail (train)

Corail is the name given to a class of passenger rail cars of the SNCF that first entered commercial service in 1975. When introduced, Corail carriages featured air-conditioning, and superior levels of comfort, suspension and sound-proofing than previous InterCity carriages and gave arguably the...

 and the TGV

TGV

The TGV is France's high-speed rail service, currently operated by SNCF Voyages, the long-distance rail branch of SNCF, the French national rail operator....

. Ergonomics, colours, lighting – and everything down to the route maps found in each train. With the couturier Michel Schreiber, he designed new staff uniforms.

The TGV Atlantique project started in 1986, Eurostar

Eurostar

Eurostar is a high-speed railway service connecting London with Paris and Brussels. All its trains traverse the Channel Tunnel between England and France, owned and operated separately by Eurotunnel....

 in 1987. A new Montmartre funicular

Montmartre funicular

The Montmartre funicular is an automatic funicular railway serving the Montmartre neighbourhood of Paris, in the Eighteenth arrondissement. It is operated by the RATP, the Paris transport authority...

 saw Tallon conquer the hill of Montmartre

Montmartre

Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...

 in 1991. In 1994, after several mergers, Tallon's company and ADSA became Euro RSCG

Euro RSCG

Euro RSCG Worldwide is one of the largest integrated marketing communications agencies in the world, made up of 233 offices located in 75 countries throughout Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Euro RSCG provides advertising, marketing services, corporate...

 Design. He has worked on Texan

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 and Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 high-speed trains, double-decker TGV trains for France, the Paris Métro

Paris Métro

The Paris Métro or Métropolitain is the rapid transit metro system in Paris, France. It has become a symbol of the city, noted for its density within the city limits and its uniform architecture influenced by Art Nouveau. The network's sixteen lines are mostly underground and run to 214 km ...

 project Météor

METEOR

METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...

, the VAL 208 for Matra

Matra

Mécanique Aviation Traction or Matra was a French company covering a wide range of activities mainly related to automobile, bicycles, aeronautics and weaponry. In 1994, it became a subsidiary of the Lagardère Group and now operates under that name.Matra was owned by the Floirat family...

, and the new branding for Finnish Railways.

Awards

• 1985: from the Minister of Culture.
• 1992: Insignia of from the President of the SNCF.

Footnotes