Gilles Vidal and Peugeot on car design

I spent some time this afternoon with Gilles Vidal, Vice President Design with Peugeot, and his team visiting Stanford. It was so refreshing to have a wide ranging conversation about automotive design with this very smart group. A key point – it’s not so much of a challenge now to design a well-engineered car. The…

the skeuomorph

More reflections upon the ceramic works of Helen (Shanks). ([Link] to hylography) The skeuomorph – a form that involves the transformation and redeployment of a design feature or quality from one material or medium into another. This is a common, ubiquitous feature of design, though little discussed until quite recently. Apple received significant attention in…

hylography – terra sigillata

Hylography – the process of emergence and disappearance, intentional or unintentional, of graphical form out of matter – [Link] Here in a work by Helen (Shanks). The technique is terra sigillata – employing a fine slip applied to the surface and manipulated in firing to various effect. In antiquity the results were fine and very…

Tadge Juechter – just what is a Corvette?

This evening I was at an Open Garage talk hosted by the Revs Program at Stanford [Link]. Tadge Juechter, chief engineer on the Corvette, shared with an audience of over 200 the features of the new seventh generation of the paradigm of the American sports car. At the heart of the design effort was the…

design and antiquarians – 8

This is a comment on the seminar series currently running between Stanford and Bard Graduate Center. [Link] [Link] This week – two more aspects of the antiquarian project – description and care. Pragmatography – writing and representing things and things done And what to do because things matter Designer Hideshi Hamaguchi explores possibilities Ceramics in…