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Blade Runner Spinner Interior View<br />
A FUTURE<br />
REMEMBERED<br />
Visual futurist Syd Mead looks back on a long career designing<br />
the world of tomorrow for Hollywood and more.<br />
BY CARL KOZLOWSKI<br />
DRAWINGS: SydMead.com<br />
There are few people in America who have had more influence on how we see<br />
the future than Syd Mead. The Minnesota-born, Colorado-raised industrial<br />
designer and futurist concept artist started drawing at the age of 3 and, by<br />
the time he’d served three years in the Army, he was constantly drawing virtually<br />
everything he saw, from animals to automobiles.<br />
Mead honed those natural gifts at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena,<br />
where he learned the deadline discipline that became key to a stellar career designing<br />
futuristic cars both real and fantasy and the cutting-edge cityscapes and<br />
spaceships of the 1982 classic sci-fi film Blade Runner. His time at Art Center<br />
also fueled a love for the Crown City that inspired him to move into a Buff and<br />
Hensman home in the gorgeous San Rafael district in 1997 with his life partner<br />
and manager, Roger Servick.<br />
Looking back at his influential six-decade career while continuing to create<br />
designs for an eclectic portfolio of corporate clients, Mead, 83, is as vibrant as<br />
ever. Until recently, he continued to travel the world with Servick to present his<br />
career-long retrospective show “Progressions” at design conferences and museums<br />
worldwide.<br />
“The imagination part is a facility I enjoy having,” explains Mead. “I work<br />
with commercial or corporate accounts like movies and corporations, where the<br />
inspiration comes from the problem. Once you understand the problem, you can<br />
solve it. I get clients to describe the problem and then I move on it.<br />
“I once had a meeting with Hot Wheels Mattel, and since it was a business<br />
meeting, I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement,” he continues. “The boss was<br />
late and we were sitting around waiting for him. When he finally showed up, he<br />
thought he’d be clever, so he asked me: ‘So Mr. Mead, I understand you’ve been<br />
–continued on page 42<br />
06.19 | ARROYO | 41
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