FastPass

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Even those of you who are not in the States and recovering from Turkey overdose - I hope you're enjoying this happy Friday.

Earlier this week I mentioned we would be announcing and activating FASTPASS which is a new tool for our most active users to "self-approve" Checkups, Design Processes, and Glossary Entries. So far some of you have been added to the FastPass system, and we expect to add more in the upcoming week. With FastPass, you don't have to wait on one of the Local Motors team members to approve your designs; you are automatically approved when you submit. Instant gratification!

If you would like to be added to FastPass, please email me at aferreira@local-motors.com. If you do not have much of a history on Local Motors, we may ask that you participate a bit more to build credibility. For old-timers and frequent users, I am happy to add you to FastPass - just ask!

We are still working out a few kinks in this system, but for the most part it is working quite smoothly.

What do you want, BOSTON?

What do you want, Boston? Now is the time to tell the Local Motors Community! Today marks the beginning of our first 2-week competition, and a challenge to design for many of my teammates hometown - BOSTON.

Got the chops? Prove it.

Check out Pisani's discussion of what he wants in a Boston vehicle:

"In the warmer months (particularly in the spring after a long winter, just when the trees start to bloom) there's nothing better than rolling all of the windows down, opening the sun roof for the first time in maybe 4-6 months, buzzin down the winding curves of Storrow Drive with the city on one side of you, and the Charles River on the other. I always like to say that with all of it's curves and elevation changes, it would be a candidate for an intercity race like Long Beach, but the other roads in the city wouldn't be a good fit at all. This brings me to the next point - the ideal vehicle would also allow me to navigate the tight cow paths from the Revolutionary days which are now paved, and sometimes not all that well due to the damage sustained from pot holes and frost heaves emerging during the winter. Oh, and I have to be able to park it just about wherever and whenever I need to on the street whether it be to visit one of the many Irish Pubs, Italian Delis/Restaurants, taking the ladies out shopping (Downtown Crossing, Newbury Street, Copley Square), to a sporting event (either one of the many colleges or professional teams). Also, it has to have room for friends and gear for trips to the park (Boston Common, Fenway Park, Boston Garden) or beaches in the area."

Are you from Boston? Feel free to jump in on the conversation - you might find that you inspire the winning design!

The Revolution BEGINS! Boston Motors Competition

T minus 1.5 hours until the 7th and most exciting Local Motors competition launches. Our subject? BOSTON: a tribute to our hometown with a revolutionary history!

Design by Raphael Laurent

Check out the competition description in full detail, and get those pencils burning. This is a holiday weekend here in the US. It is a time to be thankful for our family, friends, and roofs over our heads. This is also a time to be thankful and celebrate our talents. For you that might mean heart pounding design... if so, this is your chance to prove it :)

AAU, California, and a Revolutionary Experience - Boston Motors Comeptition!

What a whirlwind! Right now we are visiting with a really interesting company creating component parts to make existing engines more efficient, clean, and even more powerful - simple yet extraordinary technology.

Yesterday we met with an OUTSTANDING group of designers and professors at Academy of Art University in San Francisco. What a fantastically talented group of students - we are so lucky and excited to design cars for local communities with these forward thinking individuals. We're also hoping to work with some of these talented guys in the future, and I'll be reaching out to invite them to apply for the upcoming spring Design Internship.

This is a short blog post - and it is not doing my experience here in San Fran justice. I will post pictures later tonight. Right now, we are going to finish up this meeting and then head down to LA.

By the way, I'm not completely rude - Jay and Aurel are talking to the owners of this company as I am hurrying to complete the press release for the upcoming BOSTON MOTORS COMPETITION which will be announced tomorrow, Wednesday. This is going to be a REVOLUTIONARY competition, for a revolutionary town, by a revolutionary company.

Cheers to AAU students, this (somewhat secret) exciting company, and the California sunshine! I'll post pictures tonight.

We are going to BAJA in ONE WEEK!

One week from today Jay, Aurel and I will be in MEXICO for the Baja 1,000 race. We are stoked, excited to be around the frenzy of energy, car lovers and crazy aggressive rides. I'm just about to watch Dust to Glory which is a documentary about the Baja 1,000 race -I'm just in the mood to build up the excitement! It's kind of like listening to Christmas Carols a week before Christmas, the build up makes the actual event more fun.

www.fondosescritorio.net/

I will take lots of pictures - though I really don't know how much we will be able to see. I am REALLY excited for this race, but I might be just as excited to just be a part of this group and talk to die-hard enthusiasts.

Next Competition to be Announced Wednesday, Nov. 19

I have good news! Next Wednesday, November 19th we will officially announce the next Local Motors Competition: A challenge to design for BOSTON, our home town. The team in Boston is stoked to share their passion for this city, one of the oldest cities in the U.S.

More details to come soon!

Rally Fighter Development & Collaboration

Filski, Fogarasi and several other community members are pioneering one of the very first efforts to crowdsource car design. Even before we announced that the Rally Fighter, designed by community member Sangho Kim would be built, several members of the Local Motors community collaborated back and forth with suggestions and iteration on the awesome design. The beauty of this design, attention it attracted, and desire to collaborate were the three main reasons Local Motors heeded the community's call to see this design concept ON THE ROAD.

Now, about 3.5 months after announcing this design would be built, we have a garage full of component parts and sample materials - engineering of the Rally Fighter is moving along quickly, especially compared to traditional OEM standards. Ben, Aurel and many designers in the Local Motors Community have completed the first 1/4 scale clay model - and fantastic design changes are being discussed for the next round.

It is so exciting for me to look at where we are now, the design concept chosen by our community and the gradual changes and collaboration the community has pioneered - it is apparent that we are building something very special. This car is going to stand out from all others, head-turning, beautiful and it is going to PERFORM. And you, the community members who collaborated each step of the way, you will see your hand in this design.

So far, I am a believer that we can design and build a better car together than we could do in a vaccuum by ourselves. In a vaccuum, or a super-secret design studio, we simply guess about the desires of our customers - but here, out in an open collaborative environment, our community and customers TELL us and SHOW us what they want, and we make it happen.

The process is working.

The word "crowdsource" doesn't sound sexy to me anymore, though we truly are crowdsourcing car design. "Crowdsource" has become a bit of a catch phrase.

To us here at Local Motors, we don't think of ourselves as necessarily "crowdsourcing" - it's more simple: We want to build you the car you want and we need you to be a part of the process in order to make it happen.

This is a great time to say thank you to those of you who are making it happen!! Together, the Local Motors community is designing one of the hottest cars to ever hit the pavement.

Cheers, guys.

Check out the most recent community iterations - and if you have thoughts of your own, hurry up and join in. You can be a part of this, and we believe that Local Motors and the Rally Fighter will be a better off if you do.

Rally Fighter 1/4 Scale Clay Model

Fogarasi's (awesome) Suggested Changes

Filski's (Awesome) Suggested Changes

Interview with Iman Maghsoudi, Winner of Local Motors Hawaii Motors Competition

Iman's design, the iBite, won first place in the Local Motors Hawaii Motors Competition.

Since Iman had a busy week, we did his interview via email. Feel free to ask more questions in the comment section if you have them!




AFC: Hey, Iman! Congratulations on a fantastic competition. Where are you from?

IM: Thank you very much. I was born in Tehran/Iran, the country of ancient wise emperors, and current crazy presidents!

AFC: Did you go to school for transportation design?

IM: Well not actually. I’ve studied Industrial Design, at Azad University of Tehran, in which I have always been selected as an Elite Student during my college years. But my main interest has always been Transportation Design. I am especially focused on Car Design; I’m actually a Piston head. I had my first experience as a design team member when I was only 17. I designed a Van based on an off road platform at Pars Khodro’s R&D Center.(Pars Khodro is a local car manufacturer).

AFC: I heard that you have won several other competitions in the past – congratulations! What do you like about car design competitions? Do you sketch in hopes of winning the prize, do you enjoy the practice? Any other reasons?

IM: Well it is a little complicated , back in school I have always been told that, "Iman, you’ve got the gift…”, but I had to knew it for sure. So my first competition was a test, to find out where do I really stand among the other designers. Surprisingly I won the race! I was shocked, it was my first experience, was it chance or something like that?! I was confused, so I immediately searched for another design competition, guess what . . .? Another win, followed by job offers from DCI France and BMW-mini group, which unfortunately I couldn’t accept, because I was still a student. Then I decided to improve my portfolio, I started to look for interesting topics to work on, and if you ask me the design competitions topics are great, whether you win or lose, you have added a complete project to your portfolio, plus the enormous joy of excitement and fun, during the design process.

AFC: What type of research did you do when preparing and ideating for Hawaii Motors?

IM: Well I did not limit my research to the island’s ancient culture my main focus was on the Island’s ecosystem and its influence on the Hawaiian lifestyle. I figured out that an ancient warrior cannot [concentrate on only winning] the battle; he must be tuned to match the current conditions! I studied Hawaiian interests, and I gathered information about anything related to cars. The level of its impression was so enormous that my first sketches turned out to Badass Hotrods! …That was a dead end!

I needed a very unique source of natural inspiration, to develop a proper form with golden proportions. I encountered to Hawaiian Humpback Whale, which is an icon, but there was a problem it just had a very clumsy look. I didn’t gave up, I made a research on the whale, there I found out that there are very exciting forms hiding under the skin, like the Skeleton, the Jaw bone, …etc. It was great, and the rest of the job was a piece of cake!

AFC: You mentioned earlier that you thought msmcardesign was going to win. Were his designs one of your favorites? If no, which other design was your favorite? Why do you like it?

IM: Yeah, definitely. His entry was one of my favorites, although it was a little too busy to my taste, and I couldn’t find strong relations to Hawaiian customers, but I admire it for its pure sense of excitement. I also liked the Piero’s entry very much.

AFC: In our last competition, Manhattan Motors, you placed 9th. Now you are 1st! How do you think you went from a 9th place design, to a 1st place design? What did you do differently?

IM: That’s a very good point, and the answer is simple: I didn’t really want to be the Winner! That may sound a little crazy but that’s true, I just wanted to participate in the last competition. I had some Ideas about a sort of unique carline for a coachbuilder company (like LM), that promises a strong, distinctive character, and I just wanted to share it with the others. Let me tell you a something, I am not selfish or cocky so please don’t misjudge me about what I am going to say. I have won competitions before, while competing with 700 graduated car designers from all over the world, so believe me that it wouldn’t be a very hard task for me to win a competition with about 70 entries, and I do really agree that that there must be something different done here, in this competition, Let me tell you my secret! I have a personal formula to win a competition: “take it really serious”!

AFC: What competition do you hope Local Motors will run next? Any preference?

IM: I’ve started the countdown for Texas Motors and Alaska Motors competitions!
AFC: What is your dream job?

IM: Oh come on . . . I am going to tattoo this title on my forehead: “Born to Design”!

Tutorials!!

Holy Photoshop Tutorials!!! I think I hit the jackpot, you guys are going to love this.

Check out this list of over 50 Photoshop tutorials from Smashingmagazine.com. I am not a photochopper myself, so you guys will have to be the judge and let me know if this site is any good.

After finding this Photoshop jackpot I decided this would be a good blogpost for this evening, so here are a few other suggestions:

For sketching and rendering tutorials, check out designertechniques.com. This site is well known within our community, and several of you have told me it is a reputable source for tutorials. Great suggestions! Melonball, aka Allan, is a new member of LM and the creator and editor of designertechniques.

Lastly, check out Car Body Design. I love this site for news on car design and some on the automotive industry in general. The tutorials are very comprehensive - basically anything you might want to learn, you could find a tutorial for it at CBD.

Carbodydesign.com

If you guys have your own tutorials or are interested in making one, DO IT! Then, you can upload it to the glossary. To do this, upload your video tutorial to YouTube.com, viddel.com, justintv.com, or any other free video hosting site. Then, copy the code ("Embed" code) and paste it in the description of the Glossary.

It's a good way for us to share our strengths with one another.

Ok, back to watching the election coverage - have a good night, LM!

Ask Questions (Don't Make Accusations) & Sign Your Work!

Like any other community, some Local Motors members find themselves at odds with one another - not very often, but it still happens. I do not like to get involved in quibbles, but I pay attention. I find that disagreements usually stem from poor manners, or false assumptions fueled by frustration and confusion. I have some suggestions for avoiding some of the disagreements I have seen lately.

Recently, I have seen a few members accuse our peers of "stealing" designs. "That looks like MY design" someone has said, or "You stole from THIS guy". In the event the accusations are true, it is always best to ASK your peers why the design looks so closely related to the work of someone else - ASK, don't accuse.

The last time someone accused a designer of stealing work on our site, the accuser was completely WRONG - the accuser found the original design on another site. The designer had repurposed and rebranded it for an LM competition. The problem (other than poor manners), was that the designer forgot to SIGN his work. This created confusion, then frustration when the accuser stated plainly that our peer (a pro designer!) had stolen a design.

Never, ever, circulate your work without your signature. This is a habit each designer should acquire immediately, and it is a good reminder for all of you that remember to sign. Keep your eyes open for pirated designs, but ask questions, don't make accusations. There is always a chance you are wrong, always a chance there is a misunderstanding.

One of the benefits of the open community-oriented LM site, is the open way everyone is invited and encouraged to comment on all designs - both company and community work. If you are copying someone's work, chances are someone out of our 1,200+ community of obsessed car designers are going to cash you out. I like that cheaters have little chance of success here. I am glad that you guys protect each others work, and I am glad that you guys call out the cheaters. I am only reminding you to mind your manners - ask questions, don't make accusations. We do not need to cast a shadow on any of our peers, and there is always a chance that you are wrong. By keeping an eye out for pirated work, you are protecting the integrity of other designers. And by asking questions, and not making accusations, you are protecting the integrity of other designers. Accusations can mar reputations. Accusations are careless and disrespectful. So, ask questions.

It's just a good habit.

That's it - ask questions, and sign your work - ALWAYS.

Stepping off my soap box now...