Back of a fag packet!

I was standing and staring (something I do a lot now) and wondering at the beauty of design to be found in the natural world when it came to me that design in the human world is sadly lacking in form today. Everything seems lacking in dare I say grace?

I mused on the design icons of the last century and thoughts such as "if it looks right it will fly right" and "designed on the back of a fag packet" came to mind. Before computers, it seems to me, designers designed with pencil and blank sheet of paper. Great design always starts with someone musing and sketching, or used to as there was no other way. I love the way the Jaguars of the 40s turned into the e-type over time. Apparently at one point Bill Lyons asked the kids near his house what they thought of the XK150 he was driving and one kid said "dont like the back end mate.. too fat init". and thats probably why the E-Type has such a lovely bum!

In aircraft design R.J.Mitchell took his inspiration we are told for the Spitfire from the seagull. Indeed if you look at a spitfire you will be hard pressed to find a straight line. Great man was Mr Mitchell he died pretty much of exhaustion getting the Spitfire completed in time for the war he knew was coming.

Bill Lyons of Jaguar was famous for messing about with napkins and a pen. As was Issac Issigonis father of the mini and morris minor. Very interesting guy was Issigonis and a design guru. He worked for Lord Nuffield that great man who would not let the bean counters dictate price on his cheaper cars. He lost sixpence on every Morris Minor he sold because he wanted to keep the price down so that everyone could afford a good car. If it was not for Lord Nuffield half the University and Hospitals in Oxford would not exist. He lived in a very small house and was a genuinely nice guy.  Likewise Issigonis lived a modest life and was infamous for designing cars on the table linen in the staff canteen.

Lucky he did or we would never have been blessed with the Mini. But its not just the mini is it.

The London Cab the RMT London Bus, the Telephone box and mail box and many many more icons of the 20th century easily spring to mind. But what of note springs to mind after say 1970??

Besides a few bridges.....I cannot think of a really good design that stands the test of time? Even the old ocean going ships such as the QE2 have now been replaced by ships that somehow do not have the grace and form of the old girl. They have replaced form and grace with practicality and economy it seems to me.

Or, is it lack of courage in not telling the bean counters to shut up and go ahead and just do it. Would we now have the courage to design the Saturn Vb and go to the moon. The Saturn Vb was the largest rocket ever built and could only just support its own weight when full of fuel. It never ceases to amaze me that they flew to the moon with a computer with less memory than a modern pocket calculator on top of a semi controlled bomb. .

I was looking at a Range Rover and it is a case in point. The first Range Rovers had a functionality and one could see the point. The modern version looks like a mobile Cheshire mock Tudor estate complete with more lights than Blackool. Form has been replaced by a mobile brash statement of wealth bordering on tacky.

 I suppose simplicity of form and function has been replaced by aspiration now that we all strive to live in a world driven by not who we are but who we wish to portray. Mind you for the likes of me there is an upside. I get to drive the cars the public no longer consider worthy of their driveway or posing in. But more of cars another day.

My point is simply that with the exception of architecture, where there is still passion, I cannot think of an area of endeavor where the accountant can be pushed into second place by the designer.