Syd Mead

Been taking a bit of a dive into the work of Syd Mead, the graphic and conceptual futurist artist best known for his creations on Blade Runner, Aliens and Tron. There's plenty of info about his work on his official site or Wikipedia of course but I think immersing yourself in the work is really the way to go.

I think my favorite fun fact that I've encountered so far is that his insight on designs pushed movies beyond their look:

What's perhaps most interesting is seeing how these designs influenced more than just how the films looked. In one especially illustrative example, when Mead looked at the script for 2003 disaster thriller The Core, he realized that the drilling machine that was central to the movie's premise had an engineering flaw, and wouldn't actually work in the real world. After heeding Mead's advice, then-director Peter Hyams ultimately changed the script to incorporate these new ideas.

Maybe that's marginalizing his work because The Core is a questionable piece of work at best but it is a nice testament to how Design is more than just a surface level appearance.