Gimme some design briefs!

[ratfrink]

I've got three weeks until my vehicle design portfolio is due at Coventry uni. I've done quite a bit of 'arty' stuff and some reasonably technical bits (don't get excited Nereth, it's by no means an engineering course), but I'd like to do some concepts using design briefs that I haven't thought of myself (it's too easy to make the brief fit around the product).

If anyone could help by giving me some fairly specific design briefs (say, three major specifications that the vehicle must comply to) for a land-based vehicle, I'd be grateful. It can be personal or commercial, it doesn't matter. Don't just say 'I want a really fast car' though ;)

[Valheru]

1) Rocket Launchers.
2) Running Boards for Ninjas to stand on prior to disembarkation
3) A ship's wheel for the Pirate captain to control it with.


LET'S SEE THE DESIGN! :D

[Sponsored Link]

Design a car which is fast, cheap, and good looking, not necessarily in that order. No one has done it before.

[Rocko]

Design a car that takes the new F1 regenerative turbo boost system and utilizes it in a nondescript-looking 4 door car.

[Professor_Skullsworth]

Do something jeep style,...

1. 33" tires
2. combo rear seating and cargo area
3. short wheel base

[yawanur]

1. seats four
2. folds in half for easy parking
3. big enough not to get crushed like a smart

[Kwinnie Bogan]

Design an LS2, LS3, or even LS9 powered RX-7, with a nice interior.


Or if you want some damned difficult, here's another quick brief without the little story:

- Must be a hardtop (pillarless for those who think I mean convertible).
- Must handle well enough through corners without too much body flex
- Must get exceedingly good mileage (in context), while seating 7+ people.

I don't think those things go together at all, which will make it interesting. There is a visual guideline too - looks futuristic while having throwbacks to the big landyachts of yore, that is reasonabley affordable for your every day hard working money saving blue collar worker, and is appealing to wealthy pricks also (possibly through different trim levels, but even better if not needed).


Estimating price and affordability = NOT easy at all. I hate that crap :mad:, but on the other hand I rekon I'm going to be lucky if I'm not a hundred thousand under budget on the $2M building I'm doing right now (which can also so be bad).

[Sponsored Link]

Design an LS2, LS3, or even LS9 powered RX-7, with a nice interior.


Or if you want some damned difficult, here's another quick brief without the little story:

- Must be a hardtop (pillarless for those who think I mean convertible).
- Must handle well enough through corners without too much body flex
- Must get exceedingly good mileage (in context), while seating 7+ people.

I don't think those things go together at all, which will make it interesting. There is a visual guideline too - looks futuristic while having throwbacks to the big landyachts of yore, that is reasonabley affordable for your every day hard working money saving blue collar worker, and is appealing to wealthy pricks also (possibly through different trim levels, but even better if not needed).


Estimating price and affordability = NOT easy at all. I hate that crap :mad:, but on the other hand I rekon I'm going to be lucky if I'm not a hundred thousand under budget on the $2M building I'm doing right now (which can also so be bad).

http://media2.paultan.org/image/tesla-model-s-2.jpg

Done. Oh wait, it has A and C pillars.

[Kwinnie Bogan]

But on the upside it performs damn well for an electric car, and isn't extremely expensive.

[ratfrink]

Huh well it turns out that if I'd bothered to check my emails, Coventry have actually given me a couple of loose briefs (hahahahaaaa... ahhh that's funny) already. Loose like 'a vehicle based around your personal transportation needs and desires in the year 2050'.

I'll be 64 years old, have lots of time and money, and will live by the sea. Sportscar that turns into a speedboat? Three wheeler - two wheels at the front with the engine, one wheel at the back, like a classic morgan. Cockpit turns 180 degrees for 'boat mode' so the slim tail is now the pointy prow of the boat. The cockpit sphere thing would be quite easy to make into a safety cage too.

[blankooie]

Theres a lot of inspiration to be had with this one.

http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z16250/Volvo-S60-Concept.aspx

[MunkeyQ]

http://shoppingkingdom.com.au/images/categories/Huber%20Navy%20briefs%201.jpg
Oh wait, you wanted design briefs... :D

I'd like a modular car. Something which you can take the engine out to service with a couple of multiplugs and a minimum of bolts. A bit like the engines on modern tanks - they just lift it out and replace it as a big crated module.

[yawanur]

I like munkey's idea, or even better a car designed to be repaired. Easy access to everything, common parts, etc.

But I'd imagine that your design class is more big picture, how the car looks/functions kind of thing, more than how the components fit together? Then again, if those two areas intermingled the car could just be great all around. Instead of making a design and then squeezing all the mechanics in there, design around the mechanics and take advantage of how the car is put together to enhance it.

[ratfrink]

^ I'm not sure how in-depth the course goes. It's not an aesthetically based course like most other vehicle design courses. There's a lot on materials and engineering and systems-based approaches, rather than just pure concept design.

I did scrawl some designs for a carbon-neutral kit car that was made mostly from wood and very modular, but it had electric motors mounted in the wheels. The idea is that when components got damaged or reached the end of their serviceable life, or you simply wanted to change something, you could take the old wooden bits out and stick them in your biomass burner to generate electricity to power the car. New wood could come from your garden.

I spoke to someone who went to Cov this year, and apparently when they say 'imaginative' they mean 'fucking insane'.

[yawanur]

You're not sure how in-depth the course goes? I was under the impression you were 3 weeks away from completing it and wanted to add another design... are you just entering it?

That kit car sounds pretty amazing, not sure if it's practical yet, but yeah that's sick. Check out paulowina [spelling is def wrong] wood, apparently it's the new big thing with cheap renewable lumber. I think it's decently strong, and the trees grow in a ridiculously short time, so it'd be ideal for a car looking to lessen environmental impact.

Oh wait, are you applying now? I just finished my portfolio, so far I've gotten into MassART in boston and Pratt Institute in brooklyn NYC, then Uni. Vermont as a safety, and I just sent my stuff in for Carleton Uni. up in Ottawa. Oh yeah I'm doing Industrial Design, so it's pretty damn close to vehicle design. I'll post mine up if you're interested, I ended up putting that snowcat design in there. But only if you post your work!

And definitely go fucking nuts with your designs! The advice I kept getting over and over from colleges was that they want to see how you think, problem solve, design, create, etc.. Technical skills can be taught, and although its nice to show you know something like how car frames are manufactured, the point is that they want to see how you work. This also means it's more important to submit in process stuff than shiny finished pieces. So grab a sketchbook, some blank paper [no lined paper, use rulers so your drawings are clean, and DON'T fucking smudge pencil with your hands], and have at it! :D

[ratfrink]

Yeah I am just applying this year. I went to university a couple of years ago but I did a history degree and fucking hated it, so I dropped out and did a variety of shit jobs revolving around cars.

I've filled a couple of sketchbooks already. Who shades in pencil these days anyway? I use graphical markers and pastels.

[yawanur]

Yeah I am just applying this year. I went to university a couple of years ago but I did a history degree and fucking hated it, so I dropped out and did a variety of shit jobs revolving around cars.

I'm just out of highschool, that's sick you worked first though

I've filled a couple of sketchbooks already. Who shades in pencil these days anyway? I use graphical markers and pastels.

You do all of your sketches in markers and pastels? Power to ya, I just started using prisma colors for design. Want to scan that stuff and post it?

[ratfrink]

Prismacolor pencils? I have some of them, they're called Karisma in the UK.

I usually use dry pastels rather than oils (the ones you scrape into dust and apply with a tortillon or cotton wool) and Faber Castel PITT markers (they cost a fucking packet though, like £40 for a set of 24).

I don't have a scanner but I took some dodgy pics with my phone. Please bear in mind that I've never received any formal art tuition (and they were done freehand so the perspective isn't perfect)
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n210/lewisantonearl/05-04-09_1036.jpg


Top one is some sketches of that wooden sportscar (yes, those are transverse leaf springs made in wood). Looked better before I detailed the see-through section but I did that in marker so I can't get rid of it. The idea is that the chassis is made from bent plywood veneer, so it's all 2d pieces and no compound curves. Just a sketch so I don't know where the mechanical bits would go yet. And yes, I know the wheels aren't lined up very well
Bottom one is a fun sport thing. Looks like something from Halo.

In the top sketch the brown and the blue/grey and the ground are pastel, everything else is marker. In the bottom one, the blue and the reddish brown bits are pastel and the rest is marker.

[yawanur]

I'm pretty sure if you got a drafting table,a ruler,some french curves/drawing templates etc., and then learned two and 3 point perspective, you would instantly be ridiculously amazing at rendering. If you're doing these from your head, mad props. The first rendering I [just] did came out of my head through a working model, then photographs, then a tracing on a lightboard. It was drawn more accurately, but it didn't really have the expressiveness of your work. I also am just starting to use perspective, though I haven't made much use of it yet, most of my designs are random objects I draw free hand, barely ever nicely rendered.

I'll post my portfolio/other work this week, I'm kinda busy right now. Here are random incomplete animations on youtube-

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=nw82&aq=f

cept not DJ bomb

Go buy drafting shit!

[ratfrink]

^ For the interview I don't think there's much point in drawing everything in perfect measured perspective. They're more interested in your ideas, if you'll suit their teaching methods, if you've got the right attitude for the course etc. Like you said, technical skills can come later.

Technical illustration isn't much fun either. It takes an age and you can do it on a computer with better results, more accurately and about ten times as fast. Developing ideas out is far more fun, I can throw out a couple of pages of scribbles and then do three or four more detailed, coloured and shaded sketches like the ones I posted, in less than the time it takes to even do the layout for a hand-drawn technical illustration.

[ratfrink]

Those animations are bloody good btw.

[ratfrink]

Did my first photoshop rendering. Only got photoshop yesterday so I'm on the bottom of a steep learning curve.

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n210/lewisantonearl/rendsmall.jpg

Took me most of the day and it's still not finished. Drew the pictures by hand then took a photo (don't have an A3 scanner). Need to finish some details, add some highlights, then some atmospheric effects and a bit of colour bloom and it'll be done.

[zuperxtreme]

Did my first photoshop rendering. Only got photoshop yesterday so I'm on the bottom of a steep learning curve.

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n210/lewisantonearl/rendsmall.jpg

Took me most of the day and it's still not finished. Drew the pictures by hand then took a photo (don't have an A3 scanner). Need to finish some details, add some highlights, then some atmospheric effects and a bit of colour bloom and it'll be done.

Uh, just came in here to say:

Snapter: Use your digital camera to take snapshots of documents.
Snapter makes them look as though they have been scanned on a flatbed scanner.

Full version:
http://rapidshare.com/files/179056241/Snapter_by_RataBlanca90.rar

EDIT: Link: http://www.snapter.atiz.com/

[ratfrink]

I've got a tripod that lets you point the camera straight down. I just put the picture on the floor, put the camera as high up as I can (tripod on desk), then optical zoom until it fills the viewfinder... actually I've just made it sound like a rather labour-intensive process haven't I?

The more I look at it the worse it looks.

[zuperxtreme]

However you like, the program seems to have some advantages. Just sayin'.