After divorcing his first wife, Charles married Ray in 1941 in Chicago. The couple left immediately for Southern California, where they opened a design office. An extraordinary personal and artistic collaboration began with this move, an unusually creative partnership that resulted in innovative designs for furniture, houses, monuments, and exhibitions - even toys. Their aim was to utilize new materials and technology, so that everyday objects of high quality in both form and function could be produced at reasonable cost. Many of their furniture designs have become contemporary classics. However, they altered our way of viewing the world by their use of multi-media presentations as they developed multi-screen slideshows for schools and corporations that presented everyday objects in startling new ways. Together they designed countless exhibitions and directed over 80 experimental films. Ray and Charles Eames developed several new production processes. At first they supplied the American Navy with leg splints and stretchers during World War II. But it was the chairs they designed from this moulded plywood that brought a break-through after the war.