David Emery OnlineCars
26 February 2007
It suddenly occurred to me yesterday that I’ve accidentally left out one of my main interests off this blog:
Cars.
Yes – of course – being male and, well that’s it really for stereotypes, I have a great interest in cars. However, I think I’m not quite in it for the same reasons as most people that like cars are; from anecdotal evidence and from reading magazines like Evo it seems to be all about speed. This should come as no surprise, as it taps into the primeval desire for power, but it’s not really why I’m interested.
Simply put, cars are some of the most beautifully designed objects created today.
The only real rival in terms of scale of design would be architecture – which I also have an interest in – but buildings end up being too compromised by function, and too large to have the details truly honed. The design of a car is so fundamentally important – it is probably the deciding factor in most car purchases – and their are few other markets where design is so relevant.
When I say design, I really do mean design; the blend of form and function, not just aesthetics. Don’t get me wrong, the pure look of a car is paramount, the lines, the shape, the form but it’s the tension between them and the technical constraints that I find really interesting.
For example, the cabin of a modern car is a hugely intricate study in usability combined with trying to come up with something visually appealing, while balancing that with extreme budgetary constraints. Not to mention localisation issues…
While web designers whinge and moan about the problems developing for Internet Explorer, or trying to achieve a fluid three column layout, my hat really goes off to car designers – they truly know what design constraints are.