The first thing you see on the cover of H-Point is a big-wheeled sports car that leaves little room for suspension and limited lock. Designers tend to judge a book by its cover, but you should look past that here as H-Point is a valuable guide to the fundamental requirements of car design. Written by Stuart Macey - the pioneer of the Vehicle Architecture course at Art Center College of Design and Chief Engineer for Ken Okuyama Design USA - in collaboration with Geoff Wardle, Art Center's Director of Advanced Mobility Research; the book has been used as an educational handout for transportation design students at Art Center.
Preceding an introduction by the prominent authors is a powerful foreword by Ralph Gilles, Vice President of Design for Chrysler Motors. In it he describes the value of packaging and the opportunities it can present. Often it is said that design is the ultimate differentiator between rival cars, and here Gilles really punches out what that means: it is not just about finding a new motif, but also freshly interpreting a vehicle's function to develop new packaging and new proportions. Apart from his incisive foreword, Gilles also calls H-Point "an essential tool in the toolbox of an aspiring designer," calling it "the decisive bible of automobile packaging."
Thereafter H-Point takes the reader on a mostly monochromatic path through design, giving examples of past products and specific layouts. This will not be new to professional designers, but useful to those seeking clarification and essential for aspiring students starting their first semester. As the book progresses, so too does the depth of information, detailing suspension types and ergonomic layouts, dynamics and crash safety requirements, and cutting straight to what students need to keep foremost in mind when the time comes to translate sketches into package drawings. Vitally, H-Point forces the reader to examine how packaging fundamentally binds markets, their needs, functions required to fulfill them, and of course shape. Moreover, it gives the reader confidence to discover new ones.
The value of exploring packages with freehand sketching is also emphasized. But in reading the book to find that out, its rational approach and level of detail may stagnate creative solutions just as much as it tries to encourage them. Nevertheless designers cannot be ignorant of the facts presented by H-Point, and the book needs to be thoroughly absorbed so the information can become instinctive and referential rather than directive when sketching.
"Vehicle design is not pragmatic, it is an art, a rebellious act that must also work and function," says Freeman Thomas, Design Director at Ford Advanced Design. "Stuart and Geoff have created 'the guide' to help every designer and engineer find 'the magic' that makes each vehicle design and architecture unique, and come alive in the studio."
When it comes to OEM production proposals, engineers will generally hand fixed layouts to designers to sketch around and essentially dress, whereas advanced projects are often in the hands of the designer whose input may affect the mechanical layout as well. If H-Point is flawed, it is for focusing too much on production-type layouts, while offering limited information on how to manipulate future powertrains whose commonness is increasing as new fuel types are explored. In this respect, the book feels slightly incomplete, but the otherwise comprehensive content should make H-Point default reading for all students, with plenty of information that many young professionals would no doubt be grateful for too.
"Vehicle styling can be good on its own but it is only worthwhile when it has been integrated in to the design process along with packaging, engineering, homologation and aerodynamics," says Prof. Gordon Murray in support of the book. Conversely, perhaps it is time someone produces a design guide for engineers, so they can appreciate the difference packaging makes to proportions and attractiveness.
Order H Point from Curb Industries for $36.95
www.curbindustries.comThey also have some pretty dope t-shirts!
0 comments:
Post a Comment