Joseph Claude Sinel (27 September 1889 – 27 January 1975) also known as Jo Sinel or "Auckland Jo", was a pioneering New-Zealand-born American industrial designer. Referred to in his lifetime and since as the father of American industrial design, he established what many regarded as the country's first industrial design practice. Early life and education Sinel was born in Auckland, New Zealand, son of Thomas Edwin Sinel (1861–1928) and Eliza Janice Motion (1856–1926); one of some eleven siblings. His father, born at Saint Helier, Jersey, was then working as Tally Clerk at Queen Street wharf, progressing to prominence on the waterfront as the representative of various overseas shipping companies. Sinel once said it was Thomas Umfrey Wells, headmaster of Richmond Road School and exceptional educator, who advised him to become an "artist". After leaving school, in about 1904 he set out on that path with work in the art department of Wilson & Horton, lithographers and publishers of The New Zealand Herald, for some five years, as well as training through the art and design course at Auckland Technical College. There, without any definite thoughts on design at that point, he studied under the British industrial artist, Harry Wallace, who'd emigrated from England to take up appointment as an instructor at the college in 1904. Wallace had designed mass-production pottery, worked on staff at the Wedgwood Institute, Staffordshire, and exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts. At college, examinations in science and art were carried out in connection with the Board of Education, South Kensington, London, (South Kensington system) through which Sinel gained first-class passes in drawing in 1908 and 1909, and in design in 1910. It is also commonly understood that he attended Elam School of Art. Career After Wilson & Horton, Sinel freelanced in Wellington and Christchurch, then upon returning to Auckland, established a "commercial art and design" practice in Shortland Street. A split in the Auckland Society of Arts at the September 1911 meeting induced a few members, including Sinel, to resign and form the new Auckland Arts and Crafts Club in May 1912, where he exhibited work at their first annual exhibition held at the Auckland Society of Arts' gallery that year. A surviving presentation drawing depicting his design for a hand-cranked Auckland street directory is thought to be from this period. Travels Sinel appears to have left Auckland on the SS Maheno for Sydney, Australia,