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The race to produce the first production autonomous supercar is well and truely on, as many doomsayers mourn the passing of true driving – missed gearshifts and terrible lines around corners – Supercar manufacturers and their highly specialised engineers are more excited than ever. Why? ….
…. because they will at last see their cars perform at the maximum. Currently they resign themselves to the fact that the people who buy these ultimate performance vehicles are unable to exploit the full potential of the car.
Far from autonomous cars reducing us all to the lowest common denominator commuter speeds, the real benefit is for ‘B’ road experiences like never before.
With autonomous control, owners will choose their preferred setting, not suspension stiffness but style of driving, clicking the dial to their driver of choice. And it is here that McLaren and Mercedes have stolen a march on their competitors. Mercedes are now able to use the 2016 data of the current world champion Rosberg without giving away any advantage to their current F1 opposition, and McLaren have played a blinder, creating a scenario where they will have 2017 data from two world champions, Button racing in a one off at Monaco, and Alonso covering off the US market at Indy.
Moving to autonomy has relieved the need for a steering wheel, and this reduction in production costs for right and left hand drive, has allowed other manufacturers to contemplate entering the supercar market, and niche to compete on more even terms. With steering wheels, pedals and gear shifts now being additional cost options for those who wish to pretend to be driving, the commercial benefits are clear.
So with autonomous supercars using all the latest sophisticated positioning and sensoring technology, the passenger phrase “Slow down, you don’t know what’s around the corner” will at last be erased from the English language.
I often get reminded, here at Drive, that design is all about opinion, so here’s mine on the dark and scary world of job applications. So you can take some of it on board, all of it on board or none at all and prove me wrong.
It’s the age old and favourite past time of anyone seeking a career in the automotive industry, the application phase. From designers to alias modellers, we are all aware that our industry doesn’t tend to favour the conventional CV and cover letter with a careful placement of buzz words/phrases like ‘I can manage a team of people and take on individual responsibilities’. Although these are areas we all have to consider, at the end of the day, the dreaded ‘P’ word is what we are all thinking right now….your Portfolio. So let’s start with my do’s and don’ts of the most important aspect of an application.
Portfolios
First of all, know who you are applying to, if all you have is speed boats and lawn mowers in your portfolio then I would say it is quite rare that an automotive studio will consider you. Research the studio / brand and try your best to think of what they might look for in a candidate.
“You are only as good as your worst piece of work”. This cannot be said enough, and I wish someone had told me this at university too! As a designer especially, your portfolio will mainly be put under the eyes of other designers, we love looking at them, we want to be excited, we want to see that sketch or render that inspires us and then we will want you! So let‘s throw away lifeless package drawings of translucent, colour filled boxes that say “batteries” or “motors”, and the 97.5 percentile Dutch males that you’ve squashed into your vehicle, we can save all this for when we actually have to face reality, when designing a real car for manufacture (and you may not even have to worry about this).
Keep your projects to a minimum, we see 56 page portfolios with about 10 projects in. These are too big to keep/capture our attention for the period of time it would take to digest that amount of information / wade through it. We are designers ourselves and therefore have to design things and unfortunately you can’t spend all day every day looking at portfolios! Now this is the hard bit, discarding older projects as your skills have improved …. nearly impossible to do sometimes as you probably hold emotions for each project as if they were your own child. They aren’t your children and they don’t have emotions, cut them out and be brutal. Do it, cut it down, get through it. Even if you are left with 3 projects, this will the make us think that you can do everything of this level.
From my own experience as a Coventry graduate, cut out the following 1. Clay head project 2. Any ergonomics based project with lights that reflect your mood 3. An alias model or render which is then repeated in different colours to show colour choices up to 5-6 times (padding out your portfolio?).
Variations of design work. The tricky creative taboo topic, difficult to answer without causing a whole world of design debates and potential Ted talks animosity establishing what design is and how we should approach it. Try to mix it up, don’t just have 3 projects of space ships and fantastic speed painting art work, show that side of you by all means it’s great to see, however try and include some good old fashioned automotive design, displaying an understanding of surfacing, brand interpretation and proportion over 4 conventional wheels.
Your portfolio should be an extension of yourself, it should be presented in a way that you want it to be. Your style should be natural rather than something that is forced. Always be honest with the way that you work, whether you are all about hand sketching or a Photoshop wizard, show how you work as we all have different ways we do things.
Design competitions
A great way to stay sharp, get your name out there and they really keep you on your toes. Local motors, the Michelin design challenge and interiormotives to name but a few, the briefs are usually fun, and if it is not fun then you need to twist their brief to do so! No one wants to design something boring in their spare time. These usually have no engineering requirement, package constraints or a need to convince university tutors to what you are doing, go forth and have fun!
CV writing
Keep it simple, if you don’t have that much experience it’s ok, we have all been in your shoes at some point and we don’t expect to see years of experience from a student. Whatever you do, please don’t write that you have been ‘freelancing’, it’s a term we all know, love and laugh about, and it means you are probably skint after uni, living at home with your parents with a remedial part time job doing your portfolio and design competitions of an evening whilst your parents tell you that you should start thinking about getting into a different career.
My last thought on this topic, which I could probably continue to preach about for another hour whilst I annoy my collegues by seemingly moaning endlessly is this …. the self-rating skill charts!
Now I’m not sure what the universities have been preaching to the students of late, but here’s my number one pointless thing to put in your portfolio if you are applying to be a designer or alias modeller. Grading yourself out of 10, maybe out of 5 stars even, stating how good you are at alias, photoshop, design or sketching. It won’t be right, it will probably annoy someone in the studio that you have sent it to. The idea of your portfolio or data you send is that we will be working this out, and to what level we see you as and if we feel you are right for said particular studio position. Whatever you do, please don’t include ‘football’ as a skill set, to which you then score yourself higher on this than any other design skills. Makes me think you should be a professional footballer instead! Hobbies are acceptable to list, but it is usually quite boring to do so, we would like to see your character in your work.
I hope this helps you in all your applications
Have an opinion
Get a photo of you applying a tape to a clay model
Drink green tea or a lot of coffee
Be protective over your pen
Talk about sketches with emotions and feelings
Moan about all cars on the road
Try as best possible to never mention Steve Jobs in an automotive studio
Never be truly happy with your work
Keep portfolios to no bigger than 5mb (if possible)
Drive look forward to seeing the results!
Aeronautical engineer-turned-artist Brendan Walker the creator of VR Playground, involved Drive in the building of the environments that he then programmed into a virtual reality experience. You put on a virtual reality headset and start to swing, the motion detection matches your inputs and you are transported through the virtual world.
Walker, is one of the worlds created in his VR Playground which you can currently experience at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival.
The diversity of the public enjoying the experience shows the empowerment of Virtual Reality technology.
“The worlds I have created are going to challenge your body and mind,” commented thrill engineer Brendan Walker.
Brendan has taken the forces of the swing and re-engineered or reverse-engineered them create four new virtual worlds where you believe that your body is doing four very different things other than swinging. As a spectator you will think people are just on an ordinary swing but the experiences for people include bouncing like a shuttlecock across buildings, feeling like you are inside a giant wheel rolling through the street and propelling yourself like a jellyfish undulating upwards in the water.
This has been a fascinating project to be involved with. Drive are building on this experience, and hoping to take some of the learning and applying it to the automotive and transportation industries
Brendan Walker – http://www.aerial.fm
Ripley Soapbox Challenge will be held on the 5th August 2017 in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support.
Meeting at Ripley Court Meadows, the event will see local businesses and residents propel their machines around the purpose built track.
With a number of confirmed entries and the local scouts providing 5 ready to race chassis, it should be a fun packed event.
Come back to see how the drive challenger progresses.
For more information please go to the official Facebook Page
https://www.facebook.com/events/1474672985900654/
1pm Saturday 5th August 2017 – Ripley Court Meadows
Drive, under the ‘Virtual Reality Group’ banner, recently demonstrated VR at the Addleshaw Goddard Offices in London.
Attendees were able to experience virtual reality environments created for safety training purposes, as well as walk around and sit in virtual vehicles.
Drive have been creating both Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) applications for automotive and transportation clients, drawing on our experience of design, digital modelling and high quality CG imaging techniques. Recent Projects have included a VR train interior for a b2b exhibition, an AR App for the MG SUV launch, car configurator and a b2b sales and promotional App for Mirus Aircraft Seating.
Our creative team embrace these immersive technologies because Virtual Reality as a storyteller, has the power to connect, communicate and engage audiences by enabling them to experience a story in a way no other media can.
Virtual Reality Group was formed with Jason Lovell of Captivate VR, a specialist consultancy designed to help businesses understand and embrace the incredible potential of immersive technologies, Nick Collier of Hi Viz Media, specialists in Filming, Live Production and Event Services and Business developer Richard Butcher.