Update

Nearly there! I have the design nailed down now thanks to the completion of the chasssis and other such factors. I had to adapt the shape slightly however as the first iteration was based only on a floor plan and people sat on it, purely a styling exercise. The last couple of weeks have been focussing on the details and adapting to altering engineering plans. This, though sometimes slightly annoying is very usful practice and instead of being angry and staunchly "designer" I have come to rather like the fluctuations. It makes the the thing I'm creating seem more tangible and real. If anything I am being too passive and felxible. Martin has, on a couple of occasions, told me stories when at BMW and at Jaguar where the designer has taken exception to the suggestion of an alteration and had various bits of art kit lobbed at him. Apparently this happened with Iain Callum, Martin had wanted to change something and then was hit by a marker thrown by Iain! So apparently I've got to get my polo neck jumper and purple frame glasses on and be more dramatic... can do.

I was able to complete the design in marker and black pencil today and scan it and, since the office was devoid of most of the people, take the whole place apart and clear room around my full size, office equipment made rig. The purpose of this (inc taking down office partitions ;-) was so I could project the scanned image on to the large, blank wall behind the rig, full sized and see if the folk would fit in and if the proportions at this size worked as a whole entity. I feel it does and its very heartening to see a full mockup of the vehicle. I went to hobby craft to buy big sheets of paper to tape to the wall so can draw on the full sized thing. I will then tape and alter accordingly. Its been good so far!

I must do my presentation tomorrow though for Uni on how the placement has been/going. Martin etc are gone tomorrow so will have time. Ciao.

A little update

Im around halfway through this curent project and It seems to be going rather well. We have a chassis (despite some confusion on the part of Indian friend) and a design of how it looks. I was able to generate an exterior that was popular and I liked rather quickly. I have since been coming up with some interior solutions but this is taking longer as I'm not as experienced in this area. I know what I want it to look like and how it should be executed but its not that easy. It's somewhat frustrating. Long calls and chassis and construction developments have delayed the process of design. Now that we have the base nailed down I'll probably have to re-examine the exterior too.

Its all new and all very interesting though and I see the advantage of working with the engineers and how rare this experience is. However I'm not finding too enlightening in terms of soft skills like being taught things in my own field. I guess that was the italy side of things and this is the other side of the job, working in a team of different professions.

My task now is to draw the interior and start on the features. Coming up with the exterior shape and interior shape with features is a tall order in anyones book though and I've just got to keep going.