Syd Mead, the Artist Who Illustrates the Future | Hacker News Reader

Syd Mead, the Artist Who Illustrates the Future

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91 pointsdiodorus15 comments

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In the 1970s, he did designs for Playboy of futuristic environments for the single guy. Cars, (he did a lot of vehicle designs), a "land yacht" RV, and some interiors and exteriors. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts had a show of those a few years ago.

Big Syd Mead image collection: http://imgur.com/a/s9Oyr#0

People might recognize what this influenced: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/4f209325d09a4f024c85b0...

I was going to comment that http://imgur.com/a/s9Oyr#32 smells a lot like Mass Effect and then, suddenly, Mako appears: http://imgur.com/a/s9Oyr#43. Also, tell me this is not a mass relay: http://imgur.com/a/s9Oyr#49.

It seems like Mass Effect 2's Omega was inspired by this: http://i.imgur.com/4QsK0RQ.jpg Edit: As a source is missing it seems like this is a genuine Mass Effect Concept art piece that the uploader mixed into the Syd Mead gallery. Of course the artists of Mass Effect drew a lot of inspiration from Syd Mead.

Syd's work is regularly featured at /r/retrofuturism - great submission the other day I'm paraphrasing below:

First load this up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8mC9AKHoAQ

Then open up this Syd Mead gallery to full screen and click through:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/40143737@N02/sets/721576229061...

Thanks for introducing me to /r/retrofuturism -- this is incredible.

In particular I love the retro ads for Facebook, Skype, and Twitter:

http://imgur.com/a/ab39f

You may also like

https://www.reddit.com/r/outrun https://www.reddit.com/r/newretrowave

Great song recommendation, if I can recommend one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r80aUCMqHRE

Nice, might as well include the artists Droid Bishop, Dynatron, Nowtro, Mega Drive, Perturbator, Carpenter Brut. You can tell I am into retro synth tunes.

What are our chances of getting, as a common thing, a physical space like the concept that influenced Elysium? As long as we're about value for money and efficiency, I can't see productive space like growing areas ever looking so clean and designed.

That concept transitions from growing beds to lake and so on beautifully. In reality, between a current manicured golf course and a public road or residential area, we often have razor wire fences catching garbage blown around by the wind, we have dog-at-dog strips full of weeds, etc.

Many years ago, in the dark days before Wikipedia, I read a similar article about Syd Mead (and his excellent work) that introduced me to the term "futurist." I thought that sounded like a really cool thing to be, and set myself to finding out what it was exactly.

Much Googling later, I realized that no one else knew either. It was just whatever Syd Mead happened to be, which as best I could figure was "sci-fi artist, except too respectable to lump in with those grubby sci-fi nerds."

These days "futurist" seems to have a much more well-known and clearly defined meaning that doesn't really include designing movie backdrops, so Mead has been updated to "visual futurist," which has the same definition as above.

It hadn't occurred to me that Syd Mead might still be alive.

I love his stuff, and for me—being in my mid-forties—he is around since forever. A few years ago I got a book I had read as a kid and when I saw his space installations again I had to find out who did those. Was surprised he is still around and still working.

Great article! As a kid, I would read "Future" Magazine. What was cool was each issue featured a full page colour poster. That is where I discovered Syd Mead.

For those who don't know, he was recently responsible for a lot of the concept art for Blomkamp's Elysium.

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