A Special Vespa
I like the idea of an aftermarket roof completed with windshield that can be applied to a Piaggio Vespa. Something with an elegant design matching with the lines of the famous scooter.
design
A 4-wheel Yamaha Niken?
To be honest I truly like the Yamaha Niken 900, the GT with side bags and a proper windshield makes even more sense, since the bike is definitely not a supersport or a race replica. Now image an off-road version of it and make it like a quad, with four wheels. Isn’t it cool? It’s basically a Niken ATV.
What’s a Caprese?
You might know the Caprese salad or the Capri Sun Juice (that’s not juice) or Ford Capri. No, I’m referring to a niche in the niche, a ‘caprese taxi’ is a custom built convertible taxi that only exists in Capri, Italy. It’s not just a cabriolet, otherwise it would simply be called an ‘open top taxi’. It must have 4 doors, two or three comfortable rows of seats and when the top is open passengers can watch the panorama from a 360 degrees POV. A convertible cab is already cool, a Caprese is top. The base to build a Caprese taxi is always a sedan or a minivan with room for people and luggage of course. To be fairly honest, their design is not exactly the apex of Italian design but the main character in Capri is the view from the car, not the car.
Knitting ideas
Some sweaters, jackets and crop tops knitted with chunky yarn.
Puffer Jackets fall 2024
Some ideas I came up with for 2024 fall season. Not the usual big shapeless duck jacket, I’ve put some cool features in it.
A new adventure in art
I am relatively new to drawing characters, cartoons and portraits. I did product design my entire life therefore I still find somehow difficult to approach faces. Not only there are proportions to respect but expressions are important as well. What makes a character interesting is the feeling conveyed: anger, happiness, sadness and how good is the artist in doing it. I have to admit I am still a rookie trying to learn as much as possible from others, nonetheless I’m getting truly involved into it. Drawing something animated is a complete new adventure for professionals like me used to create lifeless things. Yes, an object can move too, like a car or a plane, but the difference doesn’t reside in motion. The difference between things and people is that with people there’s always a story behind them, a story recounted by the expression on their faces. Try to sketch quickly a face on a piece of paper, do it now; you’ll immediately notice that there’s no way to make it devoid of emotions. No matter how bad your drawing can be (like mine) you will always stamp an expression on it and a general feeling to the character. That is his/her personal story and it’s what’s lacking in objects.
Applying white chalk on Pantone for a mixed effect. Remember, don’t do viceversa (Pantone on chalk) or the tip is gone for good.
#drawing #sketching #art #design #inking
Let creativity loose
This drawing is at least 10 years old, it was my first time trying to make a trench (or something vaguely similar) so I thought “let’s make something unseen, something eye-catching”. When approaching a new task, or should we say challenge, we designers have to go big, to think outside the box. Trying to make something as commercial as possible would be the worst error: we’re not marketing guys, we are the ones breaking the rules, we are the professionals leaving other professionals jaw dropped. We are entitled to raise perplexity and confusion in viewers’ minds, it’s a designer’s duty to deliver something unexpected and unestablishing, close to a punch out of the blue. So this is my idea for a trench, as weird as I could conceive it.
Are you ready for the Cybertruck?
During the past weeks I’ve read a lot about the new Tesla pickup Cybertruck and I’m not referring to data sheets or articles in magazines, I’m talking about people’s comments on social media. What I found is that we have a peculiar idea of what’s elegant and what’s not, our concept of beauty is twisted to say the least and has different standards to different categories of product. A fair share of gearheads made fun of the poor thing labelling it as childish, arguing that it’s too simplified to resemble a proper vehicle but who said that mainstream car design is the best achievable? Commercially speaking it could be, academically speaking there’s room for improvement.
We got used to certain common aesthetic features in cars, they kept evolving for over a century in a smooth way (with some disruptive exceptions) trying not to shock buyers -cause in the end it’s all about sales- but this doesn’t mean that the ultimate product of this metamorphosis from model T to nowadays SUVs and trucks is the best compromise between style, cost and practicality.
We are accustomed to organic shapes and that’s why we throw anatomy terms into car design, words like shoulders, tail, dog-leg and musclecar itself of course can be heard at a briefing with designers. Vehicles are 21st century armors, we identify as our car while driving it and movies played a big role in giving automobiles human connotations, just think about Herbie and Cars. Think about it: On the road we prefer to be a Jaguar rather than being a Pinto, right? It’s in our nature. The truth is that only few can afford outstanding performance, the rest just make do sitting in over decorated vehicles padded with superfluous air intakes, useless grilles, chrome trims, even fake plastic exhaust pipes (oh God, these are the worst). Now it’s funny how the same standard doesn’t apply to home interior design, quite the opposite indeed: a high percentage of people consider minimalism in furniture a sign of elegance while, for instance, the replica of a baroque cabinet with fake gold details is definitely ‘ew’ (more like Eeew!). Now, the first question is: Why do most people think minimalism is a plus in architecture and not in car design? Furthermore: Is the future of car design doomed with the addition of useless features to give more charisma to products? Of course nobody is forced to like Elon Musk’s latest sharp creation (or the rounded VW New Beetle for that matter) but it is fair to say that the Cybertruck is unattractive as much as other competitors are tacky. Yes, we all want to drive something that makes us accepted by peers without looking like out of place, after all understatement is still a value, but embracing passively the standard of the majority has never been a good sign in society. Like it or not, the Cybertruck brings fresh air to the establishment, hence, the topic of this discussion is not whether I love it or hate it but it’s about recognizing Musk’s effort to make a bald statement sharing with all of us his crazy (but intelligent) dream and I personally thank him for this.
Industrial Art
Poetry can be found in the lines of a book but pure art can be fully expressed by bending tin foils as well, like coach-builders did for a long time during the 20th century. A thin line divides craftsmen and artists, whether they work on leather, steel, wood, marble and if they make unique pieces or thousands the difference is subtle. Industrial design can be conceived as a “process of design applied to products that are to be manufactured through techniques of mass production” (at least as Wikipedia sees it) but this is quite a mechanistic definition. To me, Industrial design is the ideal place where the production process with its requirements meets the will to create something emotional, the act of setting art free outside museums’ walls making it affordable for the community. Probably no one ever considered that buying the classical coke glass bottle is like purchasing a piece of art, the fact that a machine made million copies of it doesn’t matter: a genius shaped its iconic silhouette committing it to memory forever, it’s enough to consider that bottle pure art.
Food, Fun & Friendship
Business Lunch
It’s no news that BEST DEALS ARE SIGNED AT THE RESTAURANT at lunchtime rather than during exhausting 3-hour meetings. This is because food and laughs are indispensable conditions to create the perfect, relaxed atmosphere in which is possible to start/establish partnerships. Friendship is the key ingredient leading to long term valuable collaborations and what better place than a Bel Air Korean restaurant to have a lot of fun and share new ideas for the upcoming bags? CREATIVITY IS A STREAM, we just have to LET IT FLOW by setting the right conditions: PLACE, PEOPLE, ACTIVITY. So, choose the right buddies, book a restaurant (or just sip a coffee at Starbucks) and start the chit chat, the result (in terms of both productivity and creativity) will be beyond expectations.
Medina Davide 