Whilst working for Philips in the 1970s Mead developed a concept for Credit Subscription Commuter Cars. The idea was for a fleet of small vehicles to be made available to the public for use in Central Amsterdam. The proposal came from a co-operative design plan drawn up by the Dutch Government and Philips. Similarly ahead of its time was a drawing suggesting a concept for a common chassis with differing body styles, this too was proposed in the early 1970s.
More recently Mead has been lecturing and participating in creative events that, even at the age of 81, suggest he has lost none of his curiosity and passion for design and illustration. He is always happy to talk about imagination and the creative process and is never satisfied with where he is at, believing that there is always room for improvement.
“Imagination is essentially memory,” insists Mead. “It’s recording and memorizing what you’ve seen so you have experience. Then it’s assembling those experiences in different combinations. This is true whether you’re writing music, code or a new formula. Imagination is the process of arranging knowledge into new formats. To be creative today we need to be three different people. You have to be the person who’s conceiving the idea that solves a problem in the first place. You have to be a technician in order that your solution is actually usable. And you have to be a detached observer of the first two ‘people’, able to be objective and critical of their efforts. If you can’t do that you will never do good work. You’ll become too fascinated with what you are doing”.
Syd Mead has some dark thoughts about the difficulty of struggling with the creative process. “The other, darker side of creativity is the naked terror that confronts anyone who strides into the arena of competitive creative endeavor. You suddenly realize that what you are doing must be not just suitable but refreshingly innovative and, if you hope to reach the top of your game, it must be startlingly new. The taunt of the creative solution will wake you up with a start in the middle of the night; it will ruin many of your days and will be your threatening twin throughout your creative life.
“The promise of success is a challenge, which is either met with confidence fueled by both intuition and the knowledge that you have arrived at a competitive mastery of your private capabilities, OR it is a seductive goddess who will dump you in the middle of the freeway of life. At any time, the fertile well of inspiration can be thwarted by a host of interruptions. And the most unnerving element of all is this — as you ‘get better’ at what you do you are always competing not only with the next ‘genius’ or ‘darling’ in your trade; you are competing with your last lauded success. Yes, you eventually become your most ardent, most unforgiving competitor. That is what intimidates some to simply quit, or worse, endlessly repeat their last applauded accomplishment.”
Syd Mead’s work is well worth examining by any designer. Once you look past the dazzling colors and stunning techniques and forget about his background illustrative work you discover a man whose foresight and imagination allowed him to look to the future with great vision. There is much to learn from his sketch style and nothing to fear from his skill.
About Peter Stevens
Peter Stevens is a world-renowned vehicle designer and former Visiting Professor of Vehicle Design at the Royal College of Art in London. Over the course of his career, he’s been chief designer at Lotus Cars, McLaren and Lamborghini and design director for MG, Mahindra and Mahindra and Rivian Automotive. He’s also worked as a design consultant for Prodrive, BMW, Williams and Toyota. You can catch up with his antics on his Facebook page and his new website.
