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Syd Mead
10 quotes
“I am hired to design the optimal, euphoric, ecclesian solution.”
Syd Mead (1933–2019) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Concept & Pre-production Art for Film", Edward G. Murr, April 2007
“I've called science fiction "reality ahead of schedule.”
Syd Mead (1933–2019) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Borrowing an idea from Los Angeles, 2091",The New York Times May 22, 2008
“I call gouache French for “bitchy medium”.”
Syd Mead (1933–2019) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hackaday Superconference Keynote, 2017
“My life is creating things that have never been thought of before.”
Syd Mead (1933–2019) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Blade Runner’s Designer on Creating the Future", Garage Magazine, June 6, 2017
“Commercial art is art.”
Syd Mead (1933–2019) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Juxtapoz, March 2001
“I still have an optimistic view because I think our future is what we're going to arrive at all together - whatever we all do collectively, meaning the whole planet. I like to rehearse for an optimistic future, because why not rehearse for the best performance possible? Reality might produce setbacks here and there, but if you don't plan for the optimum outcome, you're almost guaranteeing failure.”
Syd Mead (1933–2019) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Movie Television, Toronto, 1992
“The world, whether fantasy or ‘real’ needs the entire range of ‘stuff;’ fashion (how are people dressed?), vehicles, (what is the level of technology involved?), architecture and general ambience. A movie simply reproduces the story world in a convincing manner by including all those things and attributes. What I do is to first find out what the technology base is for the story. This stage is my insistence on a one-to-one with the director. If that is not possible to start, I won’t work on the film.”
Syd Mead (1933–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Syd Mead - Interview", Rob Swain, October 25, 2022
“The exhilaration and challenge of creating the human future rises above national and cultural boundaries. Technology is not a panacea, but an ever more elaborate tool to assist us in our mutual journey to the future. We are passengers on an ever more finite sphere, and in the technologically advanced nations, we are proportionately more responsible for solutions. We need not stumble into collectively the future. We are collectively aware of the challenges, and we have the combined expertise to design our way forward. As professionals, we are all educators, either by project example or as classroom teachers. Concept precedes technique, and the new generations of designers who help to orchestrate the future will be as successful as their ability to turn imagination into realized fact. The future will be as successful as our learned ability to dream, to design, and to build.”
Syd Mead (1933–2019) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A/T Forum, Lugano, September 10,1989
“First, have a grasp of context, detail and the rationale which makes design and image-making worthwhile to yourself and commercially, to someone else. Try not to become a "linear" professional. Learn a variety of technique, of thinking methodology and most of all, don't become complacent. Honestly, I get scared shitless every time I start a new, big job. I read, I gather information and push the client to tell me what they want. (Sometimes they really don't know, and those jobs are usually nightmares!) Remember details, notice how people move, how sunlight cascades over moving objects, why foliage looks the way it does (it's nature's own fractal magic) and how come velvet has about the same range of value as metallic surfaces but one is soft and the other is brittle. And finally, don't assume that technique alone will save your ass. It still is the idea that wins...every time. Remember that elaborate technique and dumb story produces a demo reel, not a narrative.”
Syd Mead (1933–2019) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Visionary Ethic: The Life and Work of Syd Mead, p.3, OuterCircle 9, Fall 2006
“The fashionable ideology that "artificial" lacks the inherent goodness of "natural" is an appealing, but hopelessly simplistic notion of the intellectually chic. Artifice is the result of a deliberate intent to make. Nature also "makes" things, using a set of basic building blocks common throughout the universe. Exchanging infinite time for deliberate design, nature has ingeniously built plants, planets, galaxies and unimaginable constructs which seem to structure the universe itself. What we call "natural" is simply the result of whatever set of rules nature has followed in fashioning our observable reality. On planet Earth, nature has manipulated the common elements to fashion everything from bacteria to the molten core of the planet. Discoveries in the "nano" technologies of bio, molecular, and micro engineering will re-edit the nomenclature of "natural" versus "unnatural", blurring if not erasing the line of distinction between "machine" and "organism", "natural" and "unnatural", "God-given" and "man-made".”
Syd Mead (1933–2019) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Future Concepts: The World of Syd Mead, p.15, Car Styling Magazine 088, May 1992