Old Skool UI

As our car was in for a service I had the opportunity of using the new Scenic for a while and was interested by the dashboard UI. The most interesting thing I noticed was that the fuel gauge was old skool! The display was fully animated and this fuel indicator was in fact a facsimile of the way analogue fuel used to appear. I'm sure this is the result of much user feedback and not the whim of a misty-eyed older designer (ahem). 

In addition the rev counter was a sliding arched scale much like you'd see in a video game and the speedometer was a digit. Have video games influenced dashboard UI? Car games dashboards have long needed to be animated and this sort of animation is commonplace in the virtual world. Have we been so influenced by games that we *need* similar UI in our real cars?

Is this life imitating [c]art?

Visual language for design

Chief Mazda car designer, Akira Tamatani, talks about the visual language used in the new Mazda 6 car design. Enlightening stuff, regardless of the fact it seems tightly scripted by the marketing department. Tamatani says he was inspired by the power and beauty of the horse in the design of this car. Judge for yourself.

A vehicle has a face-Tron car design with Daniel Simon

Daniel Simon talking about how the form of the Tron: Legacy cars came about. Before designing cars for Tron Simon was a concept car designer for VW. On his site he says, "None of my designs will ever hit the road...most of them disappear into cellars, never to be seen".

Fear not Mr Simon, your vehicles are now hitting the big screen....

Google image results for "Daniel Simon":

Choosing product names

There was a time when cars were called things like Zectrum, Vontra, Shoo, Koop, and so on. Made up names upon which the manufacturers could hang a personality without any baggage from an existing meaning.

Renault has, however, taken an interesting turn and called a car the 'Zoe' which is obviously an existing name. I know a Zoe or two. Not sure how they'd feel about having a car name. One such real life Zoe Renault is certainly not pleased and has asked the manufacturer Renault to withdraw the name or face being sued. BBC article here.

Zoe Renault says, "I could not bear to hear: 'Zoe's broken down' or 'We need to get Zoe overhauled'." Amazingly her lawyer, David Koubbi, specialises in the protection of first names!

Maybe he should be called a personal branding lawyer. In France the name you choose for your child has to be vetted and a famous case over the last ten or so years came to light when some parents wanted to call their child Peripherique Nord because the mother's waters broke there. Trouble is this means Northern Ringroad and cause a bit of a stir in France.

Reuters reported of a couple who wanted to name their child Friday (the day the boy was born) but a court ruled against this (despite it having been baptised) and ordered it to be called Gregory. Read about it here.

"I am livid about this, a court should not waste its time with things like this when there is so much more to worry about."

"My son was born Friday, baptized Friday, will call himself Friday, we will call him Friday but when he gets older he will have to sign his name Gregory."

Aston Martin designs Routemaster

Thank God for that! The Aston Martin/Foster pitch has won through and they will be in charge of redesigning the beloved London Routemaster bus. Why the relief? Well if you take a look at one of the other designs that was in the running by Capoco design you'll see not so much a new design as a redesign. The losing Capoco design was said to combine " the best of the old with the best of the new" but to me it looks like a compromise botch job. And so thank god the AM/F design won (see opposite). This winning design may not look like the Routemaster but I don't think it should (too much)! It should recreate the feelings we had about that lovely old bus without making simply an updated version. I want to think quirky, particular and peculiar when I see the new design and that's what it does! Simply beefing up the old Routemaster look seems, to me, pointless and a bit of an insult really. Do they really think we want to see the classic design reworked? Not really-a rework is not good enough. A new design is needed which shows a certain classiness and identity for London and the brand of Britain, which I think this new design does.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7790082.stm

Qashqai

Why do I like the Nissan Qashqai?

Argh! I can't get it out of my head. "Oh! Look there's one. Hmm. Nice!"

It's exactly the sort of car I shouldn't like: SUV type car (although it seems that this is a crossover of sorts, as according to this article it has little more than a Ford Focus footprint on the road!), it's name is taken from a nomadic tribe implying all sorts of off-road antics which I just don't associate with my urban driving (nor do I want to!-described as “Urban Nomad” style. Honestly!), but....

"Oh yes, there's the funny skateboarding Qashqai advert. Hmm. Nice!"

I think I worry too much. Global warming. Fuel crisis. Economy downturn. Rising bills. Plus I'm attracted to a car which I *shouldn't be*! So I'm not going to worry. I think the marketing-design of Nissan have done a good job.

Damn them!