Car Design Fetish

The annual Eve of the Eyes event, part of the Eyes on Design series of events, is taking place tonight!

Eve of Eyes Designers’ Night is a celebration of fashion, music and automotive design. The event will host retired and upcoming designers from the automotive industry.
Included will be food, “designer” drinks and live entertainment by DJs Captn20 and AD Cruze. The event is sponsored by LEAR, NISSAN and MICHELIN.

This year, the Eve takes place at CCS’ new Taubman Center for Design Education in Detroit (located at 460 West Baltimore in Detroit’s New Center District).

The best part?  The suggested attire: “DesignerCreative”

Break out the turtlenecks and sport coats!

Starts 6PM EST

The Scuola Politecnica di Design has announced its second annual Summer workshop series with Chris Bangle. Last year’s successful program helped develop Designers of all levels, from students to professionals.

This year’s theme, “An Endeavor in Discontinuity: Exterior Car Design of the Future”,will allow Designers to interact for seven days with one of the most well-respected automotive Designers of modern times, as well as visiting exhibitions and show-rooms throughout Milan, Italy.

Taking place from July 9th – 15th, the workshop registration is filling up quickly.  All those interested in taking part should send their CV and portfolio by e-mail to:info@scuoladesign.com

Participation to the workshop is open to candidates who have a degree from schools / universities
of design, professionals with significant experience and skills in car design and companies.

For more information, visit the official site here.

More images from last Summer’s workshop below.

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It’s great to see automotive design conferences popping up around the world.  Being based in Detroit, we only have access to the annual AutoWeek NAIAS Design Forum and the Ward’s Automotive Interiors Conference.  There are similar conferences in California, the UK, and Italy, but the need for more is apparent: as automobile technology is affecting design, it is increasingly important for Designers to share their knowledge of successful design and innovation.

The Auto(r) design conference, just in its second year, brings this focus to Eastern Europe.  Held recently at Zagreb’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Auto(r) brought two days of lectures and workshops to the attendees and featured several prominent Designers and Design Thinkers: Maarten de Bruijn (founder of Spyker), Sebastien Stassin (designer of the KTM X-Bow), and Giancarlo Perini (Car Styling) were just a few of the individuals who provided insight.

The winner of the Auto(r) 2010 Design Challenge was Croatia’s Zdenko Vukoja.

For the full press release and more photos, read on below or visit www.automotivedesignconference.com.

(Thanks to Daniel for sending this along!)

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For those of you who live in Europe, Copic Day 2010 will be taking place at the Politecnico di Milano next Wednesday May 19th 2010 (Aula CT43) at 2.30 PM.   This event will be presented and directed by our good friend Michele Leonello, a former Alfa Romeo designer who is now an instructor at the Politecnico di Milano.  The goal of this event is to teach design students from disciplines such as architecture, industrial design and fashion design the basic techniques involved in using markers.  The use of traditional media still represents an important step in the development process of new products, even in the era of digital technology.  Anyone who is interested in participating can send an email to copicday2010@gmail.com. For additional info, visit the Copic Day 2010 page on Facebook.

The second in the Royal College of Art’s Future Vehicle panel series, titled The role of the vehicle designer – where is it headed?, presented an opportunity to answer a question as perplexing to those already working in the industry as those wanting to gain entrée. As has been previously established in this series, the industry is in a state of flux and as old business models and market requirements change, so must the designer. But how? Read the rest of this entry »

Scott Robertson leads a fantastic life.  Spaceships, aliens, race cars, and video games make up his not-so-average day.  It’s the kind of day that many — or day we say, all? — Designers would want to have just once a month.  With the freedom to draw just about anything he wants, Scott Robertson is an Industrial Designer living the dream.

So, you can imagine our excitement when we found out that he would be hosting a live lecture as a part of CCS’ monthly lecture series in Detroit.  We grabbed every recording gadget that we could find, headed to the art & design school, and prepared ourselves to be blown away.

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Now, more than ever, sustainability is the issue du jour being discussed – endlessly – amongst observers of the automotive industry. After years of car makers talking up their environmental sustainability credentials, they are now facing a crisis of an altogether more fundamental nature: the sustainability of their businesses.

To investigate the issues surrounding sustainability, both environmental and business, the Royal College of Art (RCA) held a seminar titled Seriously Now: where is the sustainable vehicle design?, one of a series of 5 events looking broadly at the future of automotive design. Read the rest of this entry »

Our friends at Autoline After Hours have a treat for us tonight, hosting a live webcast with GM Designer Bob Boniface (and former instructor of yours truly at CCS).  Bob, who’s career spans companies like Chrysler (the Intrepid) and GM (Volt) will be chatting about design, GM, and the electric revolution.  This is a great opportunity to speak to one of the individuals directly involved with GM’s creative content and the future of their automobiles.

The event starts at 7PM ET / 4PM PT at www.AutolineDetroit.tv, or view via the embedded video below.

Live Broadcasting by Ustream

Autoline After Hours #44
Pop-out Chat Window

Got questions for Rapid Fire? Put “AAH Question” in the subject line and e-mail it to viewermail@autolinedetroit.tv or … Call us at 1-620-288-6546 (1-620-AUTOLIN) or by clicking below!

(Live show will continue)

Join us!

Date: Thursday, January 14th

Time: 7PM EST

Location: Majestic Theatre Restaurant, 4140 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan

Link to Facebook Event page: Click Here

Will you be in Detroit for the annual North American International Auto Show?  Will you be at the AutoWeek Design Forum?  Join us for a special Happy Hour “After Glow” event at the Majestic Theatre Restaurant in Downtown Detroit!  Not far from the Design Forum and Cobo Hall, the event will be filled with music, networking, and great people!  Designers, media, professionals and more will be in attendance to share in the great night.

Join us!

Date: Thursday, January 14th

Time: 7PM EST

Location: Majestic Theatre Restaurant, 4140 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan

Link to Facebook Event page: Click Here