The IC3 Blue Train - A little journal about design, marketing, sales and other matters

Why such exhibitionism?

In Turn Signals Are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles ( 1992, Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing) , Don Norman uses the word ‘expression’ as ‘sign that conveys intention’; this aspect of design is obviously very important. But automobile lights are also expressing the character of a vehicle: elegance, aggressiveness, coolness, speed, comfort, etc.  I think that, years ago, the lights were fairly well integrated within the overall look of the cars. Today, they seem to stand out as new fins and, unfortunately, in many cases, as badly as a wart on a smooth face .

In ‘How the Cadillac Got its Fins’ (HarperBusiness, 1994), Jack Mingo explains briefly how General Motors invented the tailfins under the direction of their rather cynical chief designer Harley Earl. Their objective was to entice customers to buy the latest model by making last year’s cars obsolescent. Fins emerged in 1948, peaked in 1959 and disappeared in the early 1960s. Raymond Loewy called such cars “jukeboxes on wheels”. While I admit that tailfins are rather OTT -over the top- (like my excess of links to Wikipedia;-), I’d plead their case because they give the automobiles a definite character and help to differentiate a make from another.

 It’s interesting to note that, later, car wings and rear spoilers appeared, for valid reasons, on very fast sports cars and for showing off on most other cars. Today, they are increasingly used, as horizontal fins, by customisation fans. Maybe vertical tailfins will make a comeback, like bellbottom jeans and other similar niceties!

Back to head- and rear-lights: why are they so ugly? Look at this sick eye with two atrophied pupils. Without picking on them in particular, surf to other bad examples from Landrover, Lexus and Toyota. Yet, by contrast, the Alfa Romeo designers show how the smaller size of each single light can be leveraged to create a new style that  reinforces the overall elegance of the car.

What’s the purpose of showing all the bits behind the protection glass? I’d say that designers haven fallen in love with the latest, Xenon-based technology and feel compelled to expose its innards. I can’t think of any other example, past and present, where automobile technology is exhibited for no practical reason. Beyond cars, I remember having seen special models of laptop computers and mobile phones with a transparent plastic case. Otherwise, only the Dyson vacuum cleaners come to my mind. But, in most cases, the innards of everyday things are hidden, aren’t they?