Customer Reviews

American Car Design Now: Inside the Studios of America's Top Car Designers

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American Car Design Now is the benchmark book in car design as business management, as sculpture and as psychology. It lays a foundation and sets a standard for intelligent writing on car design, writing that trains your eye to see more. The book is built on interviews with key designers and design managers at Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. In three major sections it reveals and explores how managers make decisions about the broad concepts and how basics such as proportion and line, as well as defining details make or break the visual success of a design. The author coaxes inarticulate designers to reveal how they work, how the mind, the eye and the hand create car designs that thrill or bore us. Visual concepts in the mind of the author reveal things that would go unnoticed by designer and observers unequipped with these concepts. Visual analyses of the designs of specific cars show how and why many great car design concepts become dull blobs when translated into production cars. Analyses refer to photos illustrating the author' points. A rich set of interviews with significant car designers is appended. Finally there is a fundamental glossary of car design terms that is a must-have.

Car-design is a complex intersect of art, business and psychology that this book captures but does not simplify. You will earn what you learn from this book, but your effort will be rewarded. My only complaint that this book's handsome graphic design often does not track the text closely enough. Some photo references are incorrect, missing or distant from their discussion. Nevermind that: this book is essential reading for anyone involved in car design. Buy it now; get express shipping; take time off to read it.

The first two thirds of the book takes interviews with top American designers and puts them into articles with commentary from the author. It all comes off as pretentious and boring to me.

The last third of the book contains the actual Q&A for the different designers. This is the most interesting part. Successes and failures are questioned and I feel like the designers gave honest answers. If I could just get the interviews instead of the rest of the book I'd be happy.

If I had to do it all over again, I would probably have skipped this purchase.