Designing People

The other night, I was driving out of our development when I passed a parked car. I realized once I had gone past that I had actually slowed down to look at it. This wasn't an exotic car, or one that had been tricked out, or polished within an inch of removing the paint - it was just a regular production street car, but it was one that caught the eye, made me smile. The car in question was a Mazda RX8, though there are others that project the same sense of power and urgency, too.

Once I got my mind back to driving -- and I'm really sorry about those trash cans, and that dent? It'll bang right out, I'm sure (though who'd have known that nuns could express themselves so vigorously?) -- I started wondering why I found the car attactive. After all, as a friend of mine said, all you really want is wheels , a place to sit, and a way to steer. ( He had gone through a design school prior to joining the Air Force and had an unusual view of the relationship between design and functionality. He once fascinated me with his story about the time he had a class project to design a better tampon. Turned out to be an interesting bit of engineering, once you got past the snickering and oh-so-sly comments. ) Well, not quite, a car's more than that -- a roof is nice, a windscreen to keep the bugs away is good, too -- but I agreed with the basic concept. A car is just a way to get from here to there. So what was it about this car, and others, that made it attractive, and why?

I realized that when I thought of the car, words such as 'sleek' and 'muscular' came to mind. Sleek, okay, I can sort-of accept that. Airflow, minimal drag, all of that. Though I recall being fascinated when I learned, years ago, that the Corvette Stingray, for all of its sleek appearance, wasn't particularly aerodynamic. But muscular? Why did I think that? Well, I thought, look at the fairings over the wheels -- the way they swell out -- surely that's muscular? Not really. It's just metalwork. Someone thought that it would be more attractive if they flared out like that -- would look faster, more muscular. Do I sense some circular logic here? Whats the source of this?

And then there are the cars you see on the road today with a rear spoiler, when you know that the only thing that's going to get them going fast enough to lift the front end up would be, say, a dive off the nearest cliff. Why does the lead sled have it? Because when I see a spoiler, I think Ah, this must be a fast car, to need that compensation. So even if I see the spoiler on, say, a UPS truck, I think Must be a fast UPS truck. And where does this imagery come from? How does a car go from just being wheels, a seat, and a way to steer to being an object of affection and desire?

Advertising helps. I'm meant to think If I have that, I'll be sexy. (When of course I could be tooling along in a fire-engine red Ferrari and not be confused with anything sexier than Fred Flintstone.) And repetition -- I keep seeing ads that use words like powerful, muscular, sleek, and so I learn that this is what I'm supposed to think when I see them. Just as when I read sites that talk about laptops, and they use works like 'screamingly fast 1.7123453 Ghz processor', I'm supposed to think Wow, when what I ought to think is What does that buy me? What can I do with it? But I don't. I think Wow.

But the source of the magic is the designer.

Imagine having the ability to translate amorphous design thoughts into concept sketches that can bring bare metal to surging life. Your eye lingers on the curves, caught by the shape, the style. For just a moment, you think: Gotta have that. And you shake your head -- but as you move away, you look back. The image lingers in your mind.

What a great ability that must be.

Designers - great designers - turn the mundane into the spectacular.

This elegance of style isn't limited to the automotive world, of course. I have a crystal polyhedron that was given to me as a birthday gift years ago, and I treasure it. My wife has a heavy ribbed glass nautilus shell, tinted in shades of aquamarine, that she similarly treasures. We have a polished wooden box with an opaque piece of leaded glass insert in the lid, a set of crystal salt and pepper shakers, a hand-made wooden rolling pin, silver candle holders with etched glass flutes. All are graceful, all evoke a sense of delight when we see them and touch them. Even well-written computer programs can have that elegance.

Thanks, artisans.