Small cars are trying to make a come back by creating a perception that they are not cheap little econo boxes.  When you hear the word Sonic you immediately think of two things…look above.  Cheap fast food and a game character targeted to six year olds does not paint a good image for someone coming out of college and ready to build their life up.  Maybe high schoolers will like it since they work there, but Sonic does not pay enough for them to actually buy the car.

I guess if the price is right and the fuel economy is there people will still buy it regardless.  But I don’t see many buyers aspiring to say Hey, Check out my Sonic…..

If you don’t need any work done then still be sure to check out their website to view the amazing amount of Sketch P*rn loaded on the site.  If you need any rendering reference they have it all.  Skills cover everything from pencil sketches to highly polished renderings.  Click after the jump to see an assortment of images and the formal press release.

Press Release:

Hydra Design Labs, Southern California’s newest Automotive Design Studio has officially launched. Featuring a team of automotive design veterans; Jon Hull, Mike Desmond, Gary Ragle, and Chris Schuttera. Together they have worked on over 25 concept vehicles and over 20 production cars.

Hydra Design Labs focus is to provide all design services needed to take the clients project from ‘ideation to fabrication.’ In addition to their experience designing automotive exteriors and interiors, motorcycles, and products, Hydra also offers full CAD services, reverse engineering including laser scanning, prototyping, and manufacturing. Hydra Design Labs is also registered as a Government contractor. Their website offers up their portfolio in the form of the largest collection of work of any automotive design group featuring over 800 images.

Jon Hull, the President and one of the designers of Hydra Design Labs is very optimistic about the new studio saying “We’ve put together a unique studio in terms of talent, an all-star team of designers where each member is strong enough to run a studio by themselves.” According to Hull, this opens up new possibilities in terms of running projects. “Each designer could run an entire project, or collaborating together they could provide a devastating amount of talent.”

Hydra Design Labs takes its name from Lernaean Hydra the mythical creature, and like its namesake is also a multi-headed beast. The company is comprised of four designers each of whom has been working as a professional automotive designer for at least the last decade. Each designer was hand picked to form a new kind of design studio, an allstar team of the hottest automotive design talent. Each designer has worked on both Production programs and Concept cars, designing both exteriors and interiors. Individually each designer can stand alone, running an entire project from ideation to manufacturing. But bring the designers together and the full force of the studio can be felt by having all the designers collaborate on one project.

Hydras’ design team has an arsenal of skills ready to attack any project. Their designers specialize in many different aspects of vehicle design including concept and production cars, custom cars, eco-friendly vehicles, motorcycles, and movie concepts. Mike Desmond, the former Design Director at West Coast Choppers, not only brings his experience as a professional automotive designer, but his motorcycle design skills as well. Gary Ragle has worked as a car designer in California, Japan, and Detroit. Gary has designed numerous concept and production vehicles and his ability to distill design to its essence while always bringing something new and fresh to the table is a great strength he brings to the team. Chris Schuttera has worked for several automotive design houses, and has also designed airplane interiors. Chris’ knowledge of interior design and ability to rapidly develop themes for even the most complex design challenge is unparalleled in the industry. The design team was put together by Jon Hull who has had over 14 years experience as a professional automotive designer. He has worked on both exteriors and interiors for concept cars and production vehicles and is also a CAD specialist with a background in plastics engineering. “I feel very excited to be leading such a powerful team,” says Hull, “and can’t wait to show the design community what we are capable of.”

Developing a vehicle is no easy task.  Anyone who has been a part of the development cycle and they are amazed that all the pieces and parts actually fit together and are reliable for 10+ years.  It truly is an incredible undertaking.  As for the creative process the easiest part is sometimes nailing the sketch to develop  a new car.  The more difficult and longer process is developing that sketch into a feasible and working automobile.  A designer will sketch the concept and it is then the job of the design manager to execute the theme.  It goes up from there with the design director keeping tabs on the manager and the VP looking after the director.  You can see how the differing aesthetic taste can derail the theme direction.  Case in point, the Chrysler Sebring (do you think a designer actually wanted the car to look like that?).  Management also has input flanking from every side.  Product planning, marketing, engineering, etc. all have their own agendas that often do not align with design.

Luciano Bove is a design manager a Renault in France.  His blog Car Design Education Tips posted some tips and info on design management.  He speaks of some key attributes which are relevant to any designer in the corporate world.  Check it out below,

The automotive design process is something complicated believe me. From sketches to production there are almost 4 years of activities, brainstorming – ideas selections – sketching evolutions – early presentations to select ideas -product planning meetings – marketing – first architecture product plans – virtual reality step – model making – master models – technical meetings – suppliers meetings – follow up parts – prototyping – modifications and up dates follow up – at so on until production!

Now this is a summarized description of an Automotive industrial car design process, if we go in detail only on Design activities from sketches to final design freeze we have to integrate a parallel process made specially for all design activities to develop a car design for production. BMW, Ford, Volvo, General Motors, Renault, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Honda, Toyota, Samsung and many others every car company has its own process. They all very similar specially in Design, some more focused on manual activities (older methodology and more time consuming), some others focused more on virtual reality (faster and more modern method).

Audi design presentation in virtual room

A Design organization in bigger scale, like in automotive field, must have its own process and all actors to make sure that the organization runs well to perform at its best. This means that good performance in design process equals to good company results in terms of timing. The timing is a very strategic factor today, now with the given time (always shorter) this organization has to work in order to complete a project in all its aspects to meet company’s requirements and policy.

How to obtain this performance? Design management, this is the answer.

So, since 10 years in Europe and a lot more in USA and Japan, a car company design studio is not made just by a design directors with some designers and few modelers, but it is a lot more. It is like a machine in which every mechanical part has its own specific task and has to be synchronized with the all thing.

Design management is divided into two sectors of activity, design creativity and design production. To manage creativity usually are design directors or studio managers or design leaders, to manage production design are design managers responsible for a project from sketches to production (I have done this for about 15 years). This role, in a design studio, is a very strategic one because the translation of a car sketch into a car production respecting what Design wants is done correctly thanks to a Design manager that takes the project and brings it to production with the rest of company team (product planning, engineering, marketing…).

The design manager has to develop a strategy around his project and his primary worry is to make sure that the expressed design arrives to production with the least of modifications. A beautiful emotional car design in production is the greatest satisfaction for a design team and mostly fro its design manager. To get such high result is not an easy task, design manager must:

• develop a strategy efficient for its design team
• love politics and lobbing
• win win negotiation – if you let me do this I let you do that!
• fight over cost issues – good design some times has higher cost!
• be a good designer -sketch alternatives during meetings
• follow all designers activities converging with them and technique
• present to top management solutions explaining reasons behind choices
• learn about technique, technologies,cost,production process
• manage in house design activities like: project budget, timing process, modeling and prototyping…presentations, follow-up work in progress
• ring the alarm bell if necessary (any problem causing a stop on program)
• strong passion for this type of stress activity

Forte design process

Reading this you understand that the design manager life is not an easy one, I wrote about performance to be in the game and outside the game. To ensure this the design manager has to be very organized, dedicated to his task and be responsible.

Many times people asked me: do you still design with your management role? Do you enjoy managing design like when you where a designer sketching ?

My answer is always the same one: yes I do! I do because when I am in front of a computer screen watching a project on Alias I enjoy to sketch with my colleagues to find the solutions that will protect our design but also our technical problem. For me that is my creativity given to the team for problem solving. Same thing when the team is in front of a clay model, or during suppliers meetings on a particular parts. It is a creative job to protect design but with a strong focus on discipline, strategy, managing, negotiation.

Hard job, but exciting!

When Ideas have Sex

Matt Ridley shows that the reason why humans have advanced as a culture was because we were able to exchange ideas and learn from each other.

More importantly was his point that people do not know how to do everything, but instead leverages on groups of people knowledgeable in their areas. As a result people are contributors to a collective whole and therefore, it is not how smart a person is, but how well he communicates and interfaces with the world around him.

This topic is one that I wish every OEM would listen too.  What would happen if an OEM redesigned a car with Mr. Dyson or rethought the info/ interface with Steve Jobs?  Vehicle design could progress so much faster if politics were set aside and the consumer was actually the most important part of the product.  Put away the ego’s and stubborness and lets work together people!

[via Design Sojourn]

[thanks to Design Milk for the find]

There has been a long debate about what constitutes an American made car.  Is it the fact that the headquarters is based in the U.S., or that the vehicle is built in the U.S.?  Most people say it is where the profits go in the end.  Others say it is the plant that matters. The plant workers put the money back into the economy sustaining employment.  This can be argued for hours with a loyal “American” buyer.  Honestly I am not sure what to believe.  For Ford and GM this debate will remain forever, but Chrysler is now owned by an Italian company Fiat.  So have the headquarters moved to there as well?

Could this have a negative impact on Chrysler or will the general public not even realize that Chrysler is technically not a domestic brand anymore?  I am just curious because I have not really seen any statements on the matter.  The truth is that the auto world is global and nothing is made 100% anywhere.  Most of our “domestics” are made in Canada and Mexico.  You don’t see those countries having the same unemployment issues as us.  Maybe we Americans should build our American cars.

So what do you think, does it matter that Chrysler is now Italian?

DeLorean  (approx 53 min B&W/Color)

This is an excellent 1981 documentary by Pennebaker Hegedus Films. Following John Z. DeLorean as he jets across the world from New Orleans to Belfast to Geneva and many places in between, we get an unvarnished, first-hand look at the incredible challenges that any new automobile venture must face.

For design students, this is especially valuable because so much of the car business has nothing to do with the design portion.  Sure, the DMC-12 was beautifully styled by Giugiaro.  But a great design is just one spoke in the wheel that propels an idea from the drawing board to reality. Through Pennebaker’s lens, we learn about the many dimensions of the auto business:  Dealers.  Suppliers.  Sub-contractors.  Advertising.  Marketing.  It’s enough to make your head spin.  And in the middle of this perfect storm of minutiae, DeLorean the man must project a constant image of panache and success — which he of course does, in spite of these challenges. His team, on the other hand, comes across quite different.

DeLorean has assembled a collection of the best minds in the industry.  Some are old colleagues from GM, others come from Chrysler, Ford and Mazda.  Still others come in the form of Lotus engineers who seem on a collision course with their American counterparts.  Everyone wants the project to succeed, but that doesn’t mean they always see eye-to-eye.  Some conversations are positive and upbeat, but others are tinged with nervousness and frustration. We even witness an engineering meeting fly off the rails due to poor communication.  All the while, John Z. keeps pushing forward, fending off the critics.

The story ends before DeLorean’s surprise LA arrest for narcotics trafficking, and we’re seemingly left to ponder how it all worked out.  The film does a good job of presenting the DeLorean Motor Company at its best and its worst.  Fledging one moment and disorganized the next.  Full of promise, yet lacking in some intangible way.  You’ll find yourself scratching your head, wondering how they made it as far as they did, which seems to be the filmmakers’ intent.  Ultimately, Pennebaker casts no judgement of his own – not even on the silver-haired, maverick automaker from Detroit. He leaves that task to you.

To purchase this documentary direct from the filmmakers, visit the Pennebaker Hegedus Films website.

Here is the audio version of RoundAbout episode #28 — and yes, it contains 100% more CDF! Enjoy.

http://www.roundaboutshow.com/home/2010/3/21/roab-28-the-pet-episode.html

[via Autoblog]

Visualization techniques are constantly evolving.  It started with stone in cave, then pen to paper, then computer modeling and now we are finally getting into the hologram arena.  Holograms have always teased us in movies such as the landscape being spun around in the movie Avatar.  We are so close to having that capability.  This video shows a new form of holographic visualization used for architecture.  Imagine the possibilities of it in the automotive and product world.

Picture going into a sales meeting and showing the customer this.  Get a full size hologram of a car and show multiple versions in a clinic without ever having to make a prototype (maybe then the price of cars would come down).  This kind of visualization could greatly speed up the development process.

Holographic Architectural Imaging by Zebra from Core77 on Vimeo.

Here is some more info on the product from Freshome.

Traditional 3D visualization tools are limited to 2D display technology (computer monitors for instance). Zebra’s holographic images are unlike anything you have ever seen. The image literally “floats” in the air. You will be tempted to reach into the image with the expectation that you will touch the object being presented. You can move around the image to view it from a wide variety of angles with no special glasses or other viewing aids. In this video you’ll see Michael Klug of Zebra Imaging demonstrating their holographic architectural representation system. Zebra Imaging makes digitally-mastered, actively-animated, true-color, full-parallax holographic images. These holographic images are available in full color, or in monochrome (green). Zebra’s holographic images can be scaled to any size, large or small. By tiling together multiple tiles, it is possible to create large city maps, full sized cars, humans, and machinery. The minimum you have to do is supply the digital data set–Zebra can do the rest

[via freshome][thanks Sean]