Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin Elephant", that every magician of the 20th century was "haunted" by Robert-Houdin, "…who cast an enormous shadow over their generation." American magician and escape artist Harry Houdini (born Ehrich Weiss) was so impressed by Robert-Houdin that, after reading his autobiography in 1890, Ehrich adopted the stage name of "Houdini" in honour of Robert-Houdin. He incorrectly believed that an "i" on the end of a name meant "like" in French; but Houdini, his own career and reputation established by that time, later lost his youthful respect for Robert-Houdin, believing that he took undue credit for other magicians' innovations, and wrote "The
Hans Ehrich “Optima” was rewarded the first prize in the Ford design competition, presented in Munich in 1967. In the following year, the future partner Tom Ahlström designed a complete furniture collection in plastic as his examination subject at Konstfack. The same year Ahlström and Ehrich decided to start their A&E Design company. The first commission of the new design consultancy was to create a paintbrush with a comfortable grip, made of polypropylene plastic. The client was satisfied, and the brush became a bestseller. This was the beginning of the design of a large number of products, produced of different types of