Just an example of something that would be devastating. Of course Santa is real... his elves made me a Joe Bonamassa CD last year. All the best, Andrew.
It's a matter of perspective, I guess. I think Joe will be remembered as one of the all time greats. He's already there in my mind. All the best, Andrew.
Agreed, if only because of this: http://www.rorygallagher.com/#/news/2013/04/joe_bonamassa_playing_rorys_61_strat_
Ferrari's approach to retro design. Ferrari has always looked forward in their designs but the curves are a nice alternative to the current crop of creases. It's good to see Ferrari Design try different approaches. And on that note, I wonder who's idea this was. Flavio Manzoni? Sergio Marchionne? -F
funny, I'd never noticed the similarity in massing between the Peugeot coupe and the Islero which is one of my favorite (& underrated) designs.
Peugeot eLegend I love that they did a light upper that is not squashed. The body has some interesting elements but they didn't need to use all of them on one car. The nose needed to have worked with alternative proposals. Interesting that the interior is in velour fabric. A throwback in the material and the ribbing to the early 1970s. The way the exterior surfacing is done it makes me wonder if this is an example of an unintended result of designing in digital versus old school paper - stitching together surfaces based upon lines.
Would you please elaborate on that point for us laymen? It sounds interesting but I don't really understand it. All the best, Andrew.
What I drill into my students: explain it to me as if I were a 5 year old. Don’t complicate it any more than necessary
John, You want to see if I can put this into words instead of drawing with my hands in the air? Maybe you can make a better stab at this. What I can say is that in the late 70s and through much of the 1980s the design was idiom was in plans and their intersection. Some called it folded paper designs. With that one did design in lines with a cross section surface that filled in between the lines. I guess I can point to some designs that do not seem like they could ever come from a digital design process - 70 GTO with the soft fender bulges. A 275 GTB long nose might be another.
Talking about design is a difficult proposition. Trying to explain it in layman's terms sometimes borders on the impossible. Your point regarding the bodyside is well taken. As you pointed out, back in the '70's - '80's the popular design language was what was referred to as the 'folded paper' school of design. All hard edges and lines, with flatter surfaces. Think 308 GT4. Prior to that design philosophy, many designs were soft and sculptural like you mentioned: the 275 GTB/P4 style. 1968 Pontiac GTO. With the Peugeot, they are using a hybrid design language. Soft & hard. While some of you were concerned that it was/is too complicated, I like it for the statement it makes. The new Monza is a beautiful execution of soft voluptuous forms. Some would argue 'retro'. Whatever. It looks good. It's Jaguar like in some of the soft body sections. The Peugeot, not so much. But it's a different way of looking at a bodyside. It does look like it could have been all digital OR hand sculpted in clay. We'll have to wait for the design story to see what their process was. I do like the upper greenhouse. Light and airy like those old 2002 Bimmers. Have I complicated the discussion further? Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Let me try to do some more on digital. Don't think of the design in an orthographic view (like side view). Think of it as cutting cross sections through the car. So, you have a starting cross section for the body side and another starting cross section that defines a top surface like a hood. One can be mutating these 2 surfaces but they will try intersecting as a line. But you won't want that as a sharp line, instead there will be some sort of transition built up between the side an top surfaces. That 275 GTB, the GTO and a bunch of others got to their place differently from the designers standpoint. The 63 Stingray might be another one because of a lot of subtle shape transitions. One could think of it as if molding clay in your hands to squeeze, pull and mold a shape organically instead of a more clinical "digital" approach. Although I am not a fan of J. Mays tenure at Ford, I do give him credit for one thing he did early on as head of design - making the designers use paper again instead of being just digital designers.
In the early days of digital modeling, many modelers did not have a good knowledge of how to create complex, formy surfaces. This led to a number of cars that looked like they were designed digitally and had never been refined in clay. This led to a lot of bosses thinking that the software didn't work (wrong) or that the new kid they just hired out of school didn't know what they were doing. The reality is that the way a car looks (whether done digitally or in clay) is the responsibility of the designer, not the modeler, therefore, to some extent, the real issue was people's inability to understand the design they were looking at on the screen. Showing someone a cool digital car that they can spin around on the screen in a semi realistic environment may take their thought process away from how good and refined the car actually looks. In my early years as a freelance designer/digital modeler, I had a meeting with a major OEM. After discussing what they wanted to do, the guy asked me "When you design something (in data) do you know what it is going to look like?". This was a big issue. They had recently hired someone right out of school and had them design a car, and they milled it out, full scale (I was shocked at their naivety) only to be thoroughly disappointed with the result. They wanted to blame it on the software. This type of situation actually led to a number of studios backing off on their digital plans and leaning back on the tried and true method of using clay. There are some that believe that once the digital natives reach the management positions, the need for clay will again be under threat. This is of course bolstered by the major advancements in visualization.
Back in the early '90's the Chairman of the Corporation of the Corporation came into the Design Studio and asked the Design VP why we were 'still' using clay. There was a big push to get rid of clay, including the modelers getting rid of their large sweeps and clay tools. It took about 5 years of struggling to come to the realization that we just weren't ready to get rid of clay altogether. It's coming......just not tomorrow morning. Some design staffs have eschewed clay. Some are successful, some not so much. Steep learning curve.
I may be a dinosaur, but I trust a good clay modeler to make the design "right" a lot more than some mouse. There is something magical about feeling the shape in full size clay that the computer screen can't achieve. Also, the computer can deceive one into believing that is more shape than the eye reads in full size in real lighting. But, I am a dinosaur.
Informative video on putting a concept car together. NeuroBeaker, note the ubiquitous 'scarves' that show up periodically.
Scarves? Here's the style of scarf some designers ought to be wearing. Image Unavailable, Please Login
As a 30 year traditional clay sculptor who is now learning digital, i completely understand. Im finding it very difficult to retain my clay 'style' in digital because its a completely different way of creating.
I keep trying to preach that most of the blame should be directed at corporate level management instead of the lowly designers. It is that management group that is making the big decisions and then approving for production whatever gawdawful design has made it through their dysfunctional system.
I think I understand now... So the Peugeot design language is sort of hard (folded paper) on top and hard/soft (hybrid folded paper, with curves) on the bottom, with the differentiating line between the two styles being the level of the window sills where the roof pillars meet the body. How would a corporate manager who didn't come through design school be able to identify good or bad designs and therefore know the value of what he's approving? Furthermore, how would such corporate officers know who to hire to head up their design studios in the first place? It seems like it's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario. All the best, Andrew.
Wow, this has been an issue since the dawn of design & Senior Management. Design is one of the functions of product development. As such, the individuals that run a corporation have control over the product development process. Some companies, (Apple) treat design as an equal player in corporate decision making. Other companies treat design as a necessary evil that is tolerated to get the product to 'look right'........and ultimately sell and make money. Every organization is different. Most car companies have come to the realization that design does indeed matter. How that is handled, however is treated differently from company to company. Most corporate Senior Executives are smart enough to know what they don't know. They rely on and trust the Design function to know what's best for the product. However, there are also executives whose egos won't let them admit their ignorance of design related issues. This breed of executive often voices their opinion of designs, and depending on their position in the corporation, have a strong voice in the final outcome of any given design. Automotive history is filled with engineers, accountants, marketing and manufacturing executives who thought they knew about design, and were qualified to make decisions about design. Some were successful, some not so much. Lee Iacocca at times had a sense of what the public wanted, sometimes he was off the mark. Bob Lutz admitted he is a frustrated designer, but his background is marketing. Steve Jobs had a sense for good design and he hired Jonathan Ives to be his design muse. I've worked with people that trusted our design judgement, and i've dealt with people that thought they knew all they needed to know about design. When choosing a design leader, corporations have resorted to using headhunters and past design successes as a barometer for potential design leaders. As you might suspect, politics usually plays a role as well.
Well said. We can substitute the film/tv industry in the above and holds just as true. It was very rare to come across a producer or director that had an eye for creature design.
I'll pick up on "management" vs Design. When you see some awful design and scratch your head wondering how that could happen realize that there are a long list of people with more power and say than Design that all approved that abomination. Check the titles of the design heads around the industry, there isn't an EVP in the group. Even in his heyday, Harley Earl was only a VP which put him underneath every nameplate head (they were division presidents). Earl's power was that he was protected by Sloane, long time Chairman that no one challenged. So, Design has power but it is limited by the others even higher up the corporate ladder. There may be a "shining star" from somewhere who is the omnipotent one that everyone defers to (right or wrong). Design always has a corporate problem. It is not a black and white proposition. It is trying project into the future what the public will want. Be successful and Design looks forward to see the future. But that contradicts the safety (corporate financial and individual careers) of seeing the future through the rear view mirror and trying to come up with focus groups. Focus Group: a group of ilprepared people that someone determined to be "representative" to come look into the future. The know what they own now and what they see on the road today - asking them to project 2 or 3 years into the future is fundamentally flawed. Ah, but that wonderful group of MBAs with too many number crunching programs can create some numerical value that tries to suffice for black or white answers. To bad that these nerds report to areas of the organization that are higher up the ladder than Design. Another way to comprehend this: those higher level managers can really appear to be seen so weak as to defer to that artsy, fartsy Design without putting their stamp on it. John and I have talked about Design leadership. I remain more optimistic than him that there could again be a really strong Design leader like Harley Earl or a Bill Mitchell. I think that Tom Gale got there for a while at Chrysler. But John is correct that the odds are heavily against it because the inner circle of the highest leadership does not like having those "Emperor of their realm" personalities.
