Who is tired of hearing their company talk about innovation but not really doing anything to show it.  The word Innovation is being thrown around like the word “Green” and a dead bird in a dogs mouth.  Will the lack of visible innovation discredit all the companies that market this attribute?  What companies out their are showing innovation??? besides Apple.

Bruce Nussbaum from BusinessWeek puts it like this:

“The truth is that the backlash is against the fad of innovation, not the fact of it. The backlash is against CEOs who get up and shroud their companies and their reputations in the rhetoric of innovation while continuing to sell out-of-date, poorly designed products and services. Consumers know this is fake and realize that the talk about innovation is not authentic.”

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Recently completed by third-year students at Turin’s Istituto Europeo di Design was a BMW-sponsored project aimed at visualizing concepts for what a BMW would look like in 2015.  With the theoretical deadline just a short 7 years away, the students reached as far as possible, stretching their creaitivity.

The project was overseen by BMW Design Chief Chris Bangle himself, with help from Thomas Plath, Director of Model Techniques and Process Management, and Anders Warming, BMW Exterior Design Director.  The 35 students were divided into 18 teams to develop the vehicles, of which 12 were selected to be completed.  Of those 12, 8 were turned into 1:4 scale models and 4 were CAD.

The specifications of the project included maintaining BMW’s design heritage, with an emphasis on nature (wind, the sea, flowing movement) and emotion (music, socializing, etc).  While this Design language may seem very similar to the recent Mazda work being done, it led to several varied takes on the direction, from concepts that mimicked the “living” BMW Gina concept to vehicles straight out of “I, Robot”.  Students had to focus not only on the exterior, but the interior as well.

BMW ZX-6 Concept by Jai Ho Yoo and Lukas Vanek

Take a look at several of the concepts after the break.

[Thanks to CarBodyDesign.com for the images and information]

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With this weeks WOTW we take a look at Instructables, the website about making stuff and doing things. Instructables describes itself as “The World’s Biggest Show & Tell” and justifiably so. Relying on user-submitted How-To articles, the site always has fresh content.
From starting engines, to constructing toys, to creating insane little time-wasting objects, Instructables is a terrific resource for some right-brain creative thinking.

The social aspect of the website is great, as members create groups of like-minded inventors, contests are always under way, and newsletters and events are prominently featured.

The site is great for every little gem of creativity that it offers, and every bit as handy on those rainy days when you have finished sketching robots and need something to occupy your time.

Check them out at Instructables.com

Car companies + internet. Seems like it would be a natural marketing and sales tool, right?  Well, up until recently, OEMs were terrified of the intrawebz as buying a car online from a corporation is still nearly impossible to do.  In fact, finding the correct information for a vehicle and its options on a company’s website is still not very easy.

So how do corporations solve the issue of failed informational websites?  Well, they jump headfirst into crazy marketing schemes and go all web-two-point-oh on us!  From games, to wannabe Facebooks, to Legos, auto companies are doing anything they can to get their viral marketing campaigns moving along.

Take a look at a few of our faves, and add yours into our comments.

Example:

Dodge Quest

www.Dodge-Quest.com

A direct rip-off of classic 8-bit video gaming (in this case the Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior NES games) Dodge fabricated an online Flash game worthy of our time.  With the 80s and 8-bit gaming beck in style, Dodge manages to make a successfl attempt at capturing our attention for an entire afternoon. You play the role of a weird, toad-headed character trying to win the heart of his “fair maiden” by buying her a Dodge.  Yep, nothing says romantic like a Dodge.

Complete with a stats system, fights with townspeople, and a full town to walk around in and harass other characters, Dodge Quest puts any Grand Theft Auto game to shame.

More sites after the jump.

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Here is this weeks dose of inspiration.  Try out some of these when the Friday meltdown kicks in after lunch.  In honor of a Cobra Rally I will be in this weekend I will start with this.  (No I don’t have a Cobra darnit)

Here is a great loose sketch using mixed medias.  Love the energy in it.

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With all of the Camaro love lately, as well as our article on the evolution of the Batmobile, we thought it fitting to introduce the vehicles of another forthcoming film: Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.  We know, the title totally sucks.

The great thing about Transformers is that they appeal so well to the kid in all of us (Designers).  The creations themselves are more product than vehicle, relying on their vehicle form to scoot around planet Earth unseen (sorta).  We decided to take a look at this GM-centric vehicle cast of TF2.  Reminder:  These are the KNOWN vehicles, and can be changed without notice by the TF2 production team.  We hear Director Michael Bay is playing his cards awfully close for TF2, possibly putting things in to the public eye to throw the spoilers off the scent.

Which of the vehicles/characters are you most looking forward to?

Autobots

Bumblebee: 2010 Chevy Camaro

While not the VW bug we all grew up to love, Bumblebee was well utilized in the first film.  We expect him to be just as cool in TF2.

Read on for more images

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What kind of car design blog would we be without our own slew of Camaro pics. We didn’t want to be the only ones left out, so we headed over to Royal Oak, MI where there was a rumor that the Camaro would be out for show after the official unveiling at the GM Tech Center. Sure enough there she was with a crowd of people drooling uttering the word, finally. This is one great looking car that America should be proud to show off. There couldn’t be a better time to boost morale with the way things are right now.

On the design side, the car is clean and fairly simple. No tricky flame surfacing here. The interior also has a fresh look to it. Simple lines creating a nice flow of surfaces combined with great details push this interior to the top of all GM cars. There is also great attention paid to the start-up experience. Ambient lighting reacts to the ignition when starting the vehicle. You can check out a demo of it here.

Pricing has not been announced, but if they can keep the entry level around 20 g’s the Mustang will have a lot to worry about. As for the Challenger, this is not the same buyer so there is not much of a comparison. Fat and bloated compared to athletic and taught usually doesn’t win over. We also appreciate a new design with an innovative interior rather than a reskinned, regurgitated design and a poor interior.

As tired as we are of hearing about this new ride it is one of the few bright spots in the industry. It will be fun to see how fast and well this car takes off. Check out all of the pics in the gallery.

Due to the summer being a typically lackluster time of year for new vehicle releases (unless you’re Chevrolet) design studios tend to branch out and, err, TRY a few things.  It is this time of year that we see all manner of products come from these studios, usually as a Design House in collaboration with some other product entity.

We’ve seen LaCie’s Porsche-designed hard drives, watches from Ducati, bobsleds from Lotus, and even foosball tables from Audi.  While this has been a regular part of the design world for decades, we are seeing the current crop become all the more “in our faces” as the automotive market remains in a lull and the studios look to work outside of the auto industry.

Which brings about a great question:  When is it too much?  Or, is it EVER too much?  Should auto industry studios be MORE involved in the rest of the design world, spreading their talents into areas where Design is sorely missed?

Let us know in the comments, and click the link for more images.

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So this weekend I had the privelage to drive a 2004 BMW M3 SMG which my brother had just purchased.  This M3 is pre flame design and some would say the last good looking Beemer.  Styling aside the real hoot with this car is the almost infinite settings to drive it.  Currently we are bombarded with NAV, radio, HVAC,…..settings to customize our driving experience.  But what about actually driving it?

Many cars now have the “automanual, or triptronic” transmissions to allow you to “shift” when you are in the mood.  The shifts are usually slow and better off just leaving it in D mode. Read more

It’s not often we dive into the world of the ridiculously rich and famous, as our Design instincts regularly tell us that great design doesn’t typically float in their oceans of gaudiness.  However, to further along my inability to tell a story with very, very bad boating-related puns have a look at the latest creation from Philippe Starck: the Motor Yacht A, designed for Russian uber-billionaire Andrey Melnichenko and his uber-hot wife Aleksandra.

Melnichenko, the bad boy of Russian wealth (aren’t they all?) commissioned Starck to create this epic yacht design, throwing away the typical rules of boats of the redonkulously rich in favor of a vessel that can scare the bejeezus out of paddle-boats in its way.  Opting for a sleak, streamlined design, with a more enclosed body (read: none of the crazy amounts of open decks), we can only imagine that Starck’s vision was for a menace on the ocean, able to conjure up images of Battlecruisers and war boats of the 40s.

Leave it up to us Designers to throw a monkey wrench into yet another industry, and leave it up to Russian billionaires to use that wrench in excess.

More photos after the break. Images courtesy YachtSpotter.com and SuperYachtTimes.com.

(Thanks, Sean!)

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