Designer-speak…Bela Legosi without the accent
DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBEAttending a lot of automotive press conferences I get the opportunity to listen to many a designer as they go about describing their inspiration for, and what they hoped to accomplish with a particular project. And what I’ve been able to deduce after decades of oral absorption is this: these folks are awfully scary.
Before I go into the psyche behind my amateurish evaluation I want to point out that these people are among the most talented, creative and brightest people I’ve ever met. That said; think twice about leaving them alone with your children — no matter what their age. My kids are in their 40s and I would make sure they were all carrying automatic weapons before even being left in a standing-room only crowd at the Super Bowl with these people.
The first thing to realize is that when a designer is describing his creation he’s doing so out of love and pride. The second thing to realize is that should the opportunity present itself, turn around and run like the wind!
The only other group of people who get as wild in the eyes as designers do is probably pimps when they see the new Escalades at the local Cadillac dealership. The farther they get into their description of their product the more it sounds like they’re defending a thesis at Dr. Ruth University. It’s mesmerizing and insomniatic at the same time.
Auto designers will run their hands over the lines of their vehicles like we used to do to bra ads in a Sears catalog when we were young boys. They get that look in their eyes like the guy in the Dracula movie who was below decks and all he could talk about is eating spiders and bugs. And I don’t think any of these guys could be heard in an anechoic chamber. They’re voices are very soft, totally in contrast to their pulse rate, which must be in the high-three digits. Another scary thing designers reveal is what they think of that possesses them to come up with a particular design cue. They may talk about a walk through a lovely wooded area that inspired them to create a dashboard made entirely of redwood. Truth be told, they probably walked trance-like through a forest loaded with poison ivy and the red berries looked like a taillight to them. Half of them look like they’re totally high on AutoCAD. By contrast you never hear engineers describe their work and some of their inventions with the same far-away look you see in designers.
Even scientists like those who built atomic bombs are straight forward about their work; they’d probably describe the fusion when the firing pin clicked against the charge that released Uranium 235 to the the bomb core. But I assume a description of the bomb by a designer would go something like this:“When I was first inspired to design ‘Little Boy’ I thought of a Bomb Pop I once bought from the Good Humor man. It had such smooth, aerodynamic lines and they flowed down through the stick to where the base stood out like little fins. Matter-of-fact they were fins. I then envisioned these fins attached to a projectile-like metal tube that would flow through the air like the wind through the wings of a robin or a crow. And I could foresee this beautiful, round cylinder as it left its mother’s shiny aluminum belly with her bomb bay doors opened.”
Good Lord, do you believe such pap? Just think that somebody once felt this same passion for the Pontiac Aztek.
I often wonder whether the senior executives of auto companies who are responsible for signing off on these designs need an interpreter or bottle of flavored water when they’re hearing presentations from designers who would probably kill themselves should any facet of their creation be criticized. Or, heavens to Murgatroid, be outright rejected.
Years of attending these previews have actually given me an idea for a side business. Instead of having machines that insomniacs use for white noise background, why not just get a good set of headphones and a digital tape recorder and play back tapes of designers describing their concept? Just make sure a good, loud alarm clock is set because otherwise nobody would ever wake up.
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