SYD MEAD

I'd never heard of him until tonight, bored as I am I've been on a web surf targeting retro - futurism, yes I have a large nerd streak. But I love finding stuff that was conceptualised years ago and then comparing it with the reality of now. So I've stumbled across this flickr page.
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The story goes...
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Sometimes students are good for a big surprise - as in this case. Having read one of my shorter posts (actually this one: www.hs-augsburg.de/~mstoll/?p=411 ) on a website about retro-futurism, Dennis Bille one day came around with a quite large set of folders and unpacked these wonderfull illustrations. Obviously they once were give-a-ways from "United States Steel International" to show, how the future might look like - from a early 60s perspective. Dennis Bille got these folders from a retired designer as a gift for helping to close down his office. what a symbolic story!
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It turns out they were drawn by Syd Mead, Wikipedia has very little on him other than...
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Sydney Jay Mead, commonly Syd Mead, (born July 18, 1933 in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States) is an industrial designer best known for his vehicle designs in science-fiction films such as Blade Runner, Aliens, and Tron. In much of his film work, he is billed as a "visual futurist" or "conceptual designer".
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Upshot is that I absolutely love his work, wonderful stuff. The full set is here, click the small pics and then click the all sizes button and choose the original size, they are heaps better when viewed that way. Meanwhile here's a taste...



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