Adrian Van Hooydonk (how to draw cars)

Matt Bubbers, a journalist for Contempo Media Inc recently posted an article in which he interviews Adrian Van Hooydonk, arguably the most respected design chief in the automotive world. Adrian sits down and talks about FLOW, a way of thinking when sketching or rather not thinking much at all. He says “To do a design you can’t just sit there and think it all up in your head and sketch it. It’s not like that, like a mathematical problem that you have to work out in your head and then you write down the solution. It is something that you have to get into this state of… yeah, some call it flow or whatever, where you have all the things in your head that you want to do or solve, but then you have to maybe almost forget about them and start sketching. And then it will come.” This is a way of thinking which I originally struggled with. I always had a creative, free approach to life generally when I was young and this approach was not a problem for me, however when I indulged into a democratic world, I found that I began to become more of an analytical thinker. Upon my first diploma in design, before university, I had re-discovered my passion and love for this way of thinking. I would let my heart speak on paper rather than my head, although I did of course always have the underlying brief or some sort of goals to aim for and think about. I believe that the analytical approach should come after the creative FLOW, where you have many unique and innovative ideas to work with. If you try to analyse and think too much to begin with, only knowledge can inform your ideas to a certain extend. - and that leads to re-creating something or collaborating things to create something, which sometimes may be relevant. For example if I were designing a new ball point pen for an engineer then perhaps my target market would lead me to creating something almost identical to a Biro due to the nostalgia this design has for a certain age group. Over all, I think that knowing when to apply creativity and when to apply analysis is key in the role of a designer, especially when production is involved.