A friend of mine's house had avocado appliances with orange counter tops. It was like walking onto the set of the Brady Bunch!
Good friend of mine, Design Manager at Chrysler, interview in Hot Rod Magazine about design: https://www.hotrod.com/articles/take-5-mark-trostle-head-dodge-chrysler-srt-design/?fbclid=IwAR3kZ8opvWpDj4WOgUr6G899FulCl8yYv5maudqk5svNJxWNE_YjAjtJ3K4
This is right up there with wheels being too damn big. At 6’2”, I have never fit well in a 355. But a 360 works fine. Wonder why? Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Here’s my biggest problem with car designers, remember I’m coming from a new home builder background, who gives a flying **** about what YOU like. If you want to be an artist, go ahead, but not on my nickel. All I’m interested in is what cash paying customers want. Sorry if that offends some of you, but I can’t help escape feeling that a lot of the ugly crap we’re seeing is due to artists, not designers who understand human beings. Case in point. If I was going to design a car, I’d start with the driver’s seat. Everything else would flow from there. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Truth be known, all car design does indeed start with the driver or package as it’s known. HOWEVER, just like home design, what would you like? A colonial? A ranch? Mid Century Modern? Tudor? Etc. This is where many designs have the potential to ‘go off the rails’ and get too complicated. Yes you can blame the designers and corporate management. In the end,, like the home builder, they’re just trying to sell the maximum number of vehicles. How they do that is what makes it so interesting, and of late, so boring.
The case study would be the failure of the corporation to grasp design. How they had greatness that led the industry and was the most desired destination for the top talent (joke was that the reflecting pool at the Tech Center was to see if the new designers could walk on water). How a company squandered something like a 5 decade long leadership will probably be a more telling lesson than Apple. Yes, Apple has some relevancy and may even have a correlation to when GM was the design leader. How what many considered "smart people" made an multi-decade epic fail should be a lesson that needs to be taught.
whoa, that's what I was asked when I did my first interview fresh out of Michigan State University. The Studio head of the Design Development Studio where all the fresh hires stated did all the interviewing. So I'm sitting there and he comes in and asks if I can see the pond/lake in front of the Design Center. So I dutifully stand up, look out the window and acknowledge that yes I can indeed see said lake, So then he says, with a straight face, ' unless you can walk on that lake, you aren't going to get a job here. Now let's look at your portfolio!' Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
As John points out the package is the start of the car. You want to look at the interior as the start of the focus but people first look at the exterior. A historic battle was budget allocation between exterior and interior with exterior mostly winning. In the Bob Lutz book he talks about when he went to GM as vice-chairman and found minions proudly talking of competitive analysis of interior room (head, hip, shoulder) but then looked at the car and how it wasn't appealing. A buyer wouldn't use real money if they didn't like the look and the idea of using "we are 95 percentile in class on all the interior dimensions" as a sales feature wasn't going to cut it. The car design world is working in the future. 3 years - 5 years is common. This gets into the fallacy of clinics/focus groups. The general public does not have a grasp of trends. Their frame of reference is what is already on the road which to the development process is already old news; the designers finished up long ago and have already moved on to whatever is next. A designer can/should be able to project themselves into what they are working on and what are the proper attributes for the project at hand. A Camaro mentality is not the same as an S Class Mercedes.
In the home bidness, elevations sell the husband, but the interior closed the deal with the wife. Here’s one example, instead of putting the kitchen sink looking out the window, why not turn the damn thing around and put it over an island looking at the family room? I can’t tell you how many times I have seen a woman walk into a model, stand behind the sink, and look at the family room. I know what she is visualizing - she is seeing her family hanging in the family room. Sexist? Perhaps. But it works. In my old biz, the best designers were half man/half woman when it came to “seeing” how human beings interacted with their environment. Two takeaways: 1. Once we designed the perfect kitchen, we stopped. We would up or down grade the finishes, but the plan stayed the same. 2. Perhaps car design is too dominated by men. I can’t imagine a woman signing off on the Lexus grills. Men need women. Women need men. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Image Unavailable, Please Login There has been a concerted effort since the very beginning to get and recruit women to be come car designers. It's been hit & miss for over 70 years. They just aren't interested. In my classes at Design school, there is the occasional female, but it's not consistent. Finding one that A. is interested & B. has the talent is not an easy task. There are efforts to go into the Junior High schools and High schools and convince females that there are career opportunities as a car designer. But it's not easy. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-pioneering-women-designed-car-interiors-1950s?fbclid=IwAR3jwba7Bi047c9kcYpDJFCFwkW6kXLX8k8_1lSbZdVsOAzbVcRowBOcDc4
What if all you see out the window is your neighbor’s a/c unit? Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Welcome to the world of 55 ft lot lines. The kitchen sink facing a window comes from the old farm house days. Momma wanted to be able to see who was driving up the driveway. We haven’t built too many farmhouses in recent decades. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Getting back to my point. I’d first design a driver’s cockpit to fit at least 95% of the lengths and body types (short v long waisted) who would be buying the car. I won’t care if having less rake in the windshield hurts the aerodynamics at 150 mph. How many people drive a Ferrari at 150 mph more than once? Letting design esthetics overrule buyer demographics is stupid. I’m 6’2” and long waisted with short arms (I was a lousy boxer). I fit in a F360 with no problem. A F355? Forget about it. The windshield has too much rake. Ps I hate Lazy Boy seating. I like to sit up. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Depending upon the vehicle architecture, most vehicles are designed to accommodate 95% - 98 % The Ferrari comparison isn't real world. They design to less strict criteria than mass mfg do. Just the way it is.
I’ve had the same problem with Vettes. The problem is the rake of the windshield. Not all of us are 5’10”. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
