Much of the traffic this website receives is from people who are interested in a career in car design. It is a very difficult career to secure, and not at as one might visualize. This is a short explanation of how I ended up in this career. It isn't the path that everyone takes of course, but the one constant I recommend to everyone is to go through the Art Center Bachelor of Science Transportation Design program.

I got into car design because it involved to of my lifelong loves, drawing and cars. I've been drawing since I was a tiny kid and I was always drawing vehicles of some sort. In my kindergarten days I was interested in army vehicles- jeeps and trucks. I also liked to draw dramatic scenes with racing cars. I remember looking at books on the Indy 500 at the library and being quite interested in the spectacular accidents! Of course I had the large collection of die-cast cars, though my favorites were the Tomica "Pocket Cars" because I wasn't exposed to hot rod culture at all and at the time I could relate more to an accurately represented miniature Toyota Land Cruiser than a Ford Capri with huge tires and an oversize hunk of chrome motor sticking out of the hood. I had my share of favorite Hot Wheels, like the Brinks truck, and the Chevy Nomad, but for some odd reason, my favorites were the very utilitarian vehicles like a Tomica Hiace cab-over moving van! Of course, in 1977, Star Wars came out and space vehicle design was my thing for several years.

I didn't start drawing cars again until about seventh grade and at this point I was considering my future career. As I hated the idea of being a starving artist, but wanting to draw for a living, I always assumed that I'd be an architect because that was the only job I knew of where you could draw and make money (I figured Mike Brady did a pretty decent job supporting a wife, an ex-wife, a maid and six kids so that would work fine for me). For a while I considered and practiced graphic design doing logos and t-shirts and thought that might be a future profession. For my birthday around this time, my parents gave me a book called "Rapid Viz" by Hanks and Beliston (which I'm pleased to see is still in print). The book had tons of ID and product sketches and some real trans design sketches which I had never seen before, but was very familiar with the drawing style having worn out my Joe Johnston/ Ralph McQuarrie Star Wars Sketchbooks. There were even some Syd Mead American Steel paintings in there that once scaled down and in black and white looked pretty much like photographs. Industrial design looked like my thing alright. Draw cars, make money. Brigham Young was the only ID program I was aware of as it was mentioned in the Rapid Viz book. I figured I would emulate that style and was back into drawing vehicles with wheels on them again.

When I got into high school took some art classes, but it was my mechanical drawing classes where my instructor Mr. Conley supported all of my car design plans and let me do my own thing after I had gotten a handle on the basics of mechanical drawing. At one point I happened to find a catalog stabilizing a table in my art class for a design college called Art Center. This school had an ID program that was transportation design specific and as I later discovered was pretty much THE place to go to if you wanted to be a designer. My mom read about Art Center in Sunset magazine which used to sponsor design projects. After some more research and seeing Center For Creative Studies in Detroit as the number 2 option, I went to the local community college to develop my portfolio and save some money.

During my community college, my parents and I drove down to Pasadena to check out the school where I picked up and subscribed to the essential Car Styling magazine. I also attended a couple portfolio review days up in Portland where you bring your art portfolio and visit with admissions advisors from various art schools. I talked with CCS and Art Center and got an idea of what I wanted to submit when I applied. It was pretty simple- what Art Center wanted was a neat and tidy presentation, indication of design process and thinking, and indications of talent and potential. I submitted a few different design projects, each vehicle had a stapled booklet of pencil or ink development sketches and a couple large format color marker renderings of the finished design. I decided to do a variety of concepts like a motorcycle, a van, a truck, and a sportscar to demonstrate range. I taped it all up and sent it off to Art Center and soon received an acceptance letter and a good scholarship which I really needed. That's it. For three years, I worked hard and stayed at the top, Art Center gave me what I needed and I graduated with honors with some intern experience working for Boeing and John Deere and I ended up at Honda R&D three months later.

I have been working at Honda R&D Americas, Inc. since 1997, working on concept and production vehicles for Honda and Acura. My primary task is digital modelling, and am at a level where I spend time managing projects and researching design methods and new software and hardware. It is a fun career and a childhood dream acheived.

After twelve years in the business, my outside artistic pursuits and subject matter are more varied and I am enjoying the power of digital modelling as a creative medium while developing my drawing skills on the computer. The latest technology I am learning to use is a combination tablet/LCD monitor which provides more natural connectivity from the hand to the created image that the traditional drawing tablet in front of the monitor.

The top things I tell people to consider if they want to have a career in car design are:

• Generally, it is not a high paying career. I recommend a law degree for that.
• You have to love what you do; you should being around all kinds of cars all of your waking life.
• It is a very difficult career to get into. School is expensive, jobs are EXTREMELY limited.
• You should find all aspects of car design interesting, not just drawing. The car design world is more time spent with four door family sedans and market research documents than sports cars and hot sketches.
• If you want a job, you have to work extremely hard through one of the best schools and be at the top of your class.
• I am serious about all of this. Half-way will get you nowhere. Period.