I have been thinking recently why the old hand renderings of concepts were enjoyable and thought provoking but didnt cross the line into deception. In Syd’s work it had a dream like quality, and being hand drawn rendering you KNEW it was a drawing and that he was not trying to say “fully resolved product” but was saying “this might be cool, what do you think”. Our ability to render in the computer hyper detailed, photo realistic product concepts in a way may be hurting out abiity to communicate forcing all concepts to be judged as fully fleshed out products, which they are not. Computer rendering is a geat tool, but is it the best tool for comunication of concepts, I dont know, but when I looked at a Syd drawing I would be invited into the dream, not presented with a dilema of “oh come on now, thats impossiable”. Just something to think about when your presenting your next notion.
[quote=“zippyflounder”] “oh come on now, thats impossible”.
On an occassion when Syd Mead was the featured attraction at an IDSA meeting, my father, who had known Syd for many years, joked that he was still trying to figure out how Syd’s levitating designs worked. Syd’s reply, “They work on PFM.” Dad: “PFM? What’s that?” Syd: “Pure f**king magic!”
I agree that’s a large part of the appeal of the kind of renderings he does. When he did more “realistic” things, like “Blade Runner”, I felt that they were too resolved, yet not resolved enough. That is, it became too easy to nit-pick them. In something that’s obviously a dream, anything’s possible.
As I think you’re suggesting, there’s an element of that that’s worth remembering in our everyday work, too. My dad used to say, “Keep your early concept drawings loose enough that the client can see what he wants to in them. That way you’ll find out what he likes and doesn’t like and you’ll get to a solution faster.” What he was saying is that when something looks very real, the acceptance or rejection you get will be to the product exactly as you’ve shown it, not to how it can be developed into a better design.
yes pretty much, and syd never even tried to foist a technobabble justifications…just pure fucking magic 
“Keep your early concept drawings loose enough that the client can see what he wants to in them. That way you’ll find out what he likes and doesn’t like and you’ll get to a solution faster.”
This is an excellent point. It is one that should be considered by most designers daily, and probably has a good place in the “Put the product back…” thread. Show your customers a bit of what you want, then find out where they want to go with it. True collaboration, better final products.
One thing I’ve always enjoyed about hyper-realism is that you are constantly looking for the imperfections in the piece. And when you find them you think to yourself “Ahhh, he’s human afterall.” With computer renderings, there isn’t that interaction with the piece, you just feel, as you said, “oh come on now, thats impossible”
It’s weird how things come up. Bill Buxton’s book “Sketching User Experience” is 50% on how sketches communicate ideas. After seeing his lecture, I started to manipulate how refined my sketches are that I present, rather than going for realism on the first round. It really works. When I show realistic renders, people choose one, when I show sketch-renders, people choose bits of three ideas.
its also a great problem solving method, show a engineer a roughish sketch and he/she will go “well there are some problems, here, here and here” and you then enter a productive dialog on resolution rather than defending something that you spent 10 hours on.
Oh yeah, I figured this out pretty quickly when I started working with Alias in the mid 90’s.
As a young designer it was cool to get the instant credibility boost that came with photorealism, but I quickly realized that it was really ending conversations rather than starting them. Clients were afraid to even comment because they looked finished! In other words, it wasn’t helping the actual design, just it’s believeability.
These days I stick to sketches or Adobe Illustrator renderings and use all that time I used to spend with software with people.
CG, we are in agreement. Better to invest the time in figuring out what to build, and making sure the idea is right, than over doing it on essentially a fancy rendering that spins that you might not be able to make.
That said, once you understand how things are made, and you understand how to investigate consumers and the market, there are some things that are just hard to explore in sketching. Here is I think 3d’s true power. To explore and refine for manufactuability.
its another tool if your a pro, if your not its great camoflage for lack of knowlage and experiance.
I think there is a time and place for everything.
Any teachers out there, add this to your curriculum. Weirdly enough, I didn’t do much CAD in school, but I ended up over-using it at my first job. I wish someone had explained all of this to me…but then again, experience is the best way to learn!
it’s another tool if you’re a pro. If you’re not its great camouflage for lack of knowledge and experience.
Agreed, and there’s another side to it. Here’s another warning from my dad when I was starting out. “A lot of great design never sees the light of day because someone found that what he saw in his mind was hard to draw.â€
I’ve found that it’s the same with CAD. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen people settle for less than optimum forms because the right ones are hard to model. When you start letting the tools you’re using determine the design it’s time to switch tools, learn to become more proficient in the ones you’re using or find a CAD jockey to help you get what you want.
Weirdly enough, I didn’t do much CAD in school, but I ended up over-using it at my first job.
I think this happens to a lot of us unfortunately.
The other thing about Syd in particular is his bold use of color and light that provided the atmosphere. That’s largely absent from 3D renderings that treat the scene like a photo studio rather than a painted landscape. Plus these days no one has Syd’s patience!
I remember seeing that a lot in school, guys and gals letting the CAD design the products for them. I forget who told me not to design things in CAD because that is what would happen, but good advice.
I also remember reading an article where the author was discussing young designers not developing a “style” of there own because, he surmised, of the use of CAD and tablet sketching. He was remembering walking around the GM studios back in the day and being able to look quickly at a sketch and know who did it by the “style” of the sketch or rendering.
On the original topic, “style” is something Syd has in spades. Look at one of his works and you know immediately who did it. I think that’s one reason he continues to be successful and admired. He stands out in a generic world.
Lack of an individual style and viewpoint may be one of the big problems with design in general in our time. It used to be that individual offices and designers were more distinguishable. Now I challenge anyone to look through a design annual and tell who did something by its look alone. We’ve become virtually interchangeable.
On that score I believe we share the blame with marketing. Designers are often “inspired” by the latest hot looks and many product managers are so risk averse that they want something that almost identical to whatever is number one in sales in their product area. Upon being shown something that’s advanced and unique, I’ve had marketing people actually tell me that they don’t want to be first. Being second or third is safer because you can go to school on the reaction to number one. Sad. Understandable, but sad none the less. These are the same people that make excuses for losing market share to the leaders, and guess who they often blame!
If your having trouble drawing it, imagine BUIDING IT 
Lack of an individual style and viewpoint may be one of the big problems with design in general in our time. It used to be that individual offices and designers were more distinguishable. Now I challenge anyone to look through a design annual and tell who did something by its look alone. We’ve become virtually interchangeable.
It’s amazing how everything is connecting this week in the forums.
I’m developing a product right now that, when I presented, I kept thinking the same thing. ‘I hope my bosses doesn’t like that concept…that’s going to be a pain to model’. Luckily, he picked it. I learned a lot about surface modeling and SolidEdge with that project.
On the other hand…sometimes I draw stuff that when I arrive at CAD, I realize is an impossible shape in 3 dimensions. I don’t know if that happens to others. It’s also decreased with experience.
experiance does help, and when I “model” i really model, real 3d, clay, foam, what ever works, then I know. I also think you get a better feel, for me the best products are from the hands and the head.
It depends on the complexity of the design, but I also often find that I can resolve geometry faster and better in a physical model, even if it’s just a quick foam study. Once I have that in hand it’s a great guide for delineating the geometry in CAD.
Sometimes it’s nice to do some quick study models to look at even in the 2D sketch phase. That can eliminate some embarrassing surprises down the road. Don’t you just hate when your client falls in love with the one shape that turns out to have impossible geometry?!!! Experience does help in avoiding that, but I’ll bet we all still get an occasional nasty surprise and have to put on our tap dancing shoes.