Drew Smith on the car industry's failure to "do digital"

We spent a fine afternoon at the Angel pub in Rotherhithe, London on Friday, talking with one of our favourite design commentators - Drew Smith, aka @drewpasmith on Twitter, who edits the DownsideUpDesign blog. The conversation was, in several ways, atomic.

While in the 1950s and 60s cars stayed in tune with their age - the space rocket you could afford to buy - Drew argues that the auto industry has failed to connect with the digital age.

We talk too about the role that notions of ownership play, and how, as a result of social networking, they are perhaps starting to dissolve. Will digital networks and services fundamentally change how a new generation views cars? Can anyone harness this?

Mark Charmer talks with Drew Smith and Joseph Simpson. Angel at Rotherhithe, London, 29 May 2009.

Comments

[Stephen Donald]

Inspirational video,
Been thinking a little about this for a while,
Did a concept for the l'argus challenge back in '07 where I was utilizing the outside of the vehicle as a digital form by adding eink technology to add a changing visual experience depending on what the driver wanted to display.

The design work was kind of rough and listening to you guys chat about social networking and the digital age has kind of got ideas flowing about how to elaborate on the concept, thinking of recapping over it in the next week when I get a second.. Would you guys take a look over it?

[Drew Smith]

Hey Stephen,

Thanks for taking the time to comment, it's always nice to hear that there are others out there thinking along similar lines.

Your Argus project sounds really interesting. In the same year, believe it or not, I completed my MA at Coventry looking into something very similar by incorporating OLED displays into vehicle surfaces to affect visual perception. If you get around to recapping it, I'd love to take a look and see how close our projects came!

Do you have a blog/website? You can always get in touch with me via DownsideUp if you're keen.

[Stephen Donald]

Hey Drew,

Wow how was Coventry?
When I did the Argus project my visual skills weren’t so good, you could take a look at the board at http://www.coroflot.com/designstephend

Nothing much to see really, but this concept work got me a scholarship to the summer course at ccs last summer and my sketching skills seem to be coming together better now.

I have a simple blog site where I post up sketch work here and there would be really great if you could take a look.
www.stephendonald.com

I think I should get round to recapping it early next week now, got some tight deadlines at college so I’m kind of busy but I’m eager to look at it again. It’s one of these ideas I feel I could produce some great work from... I hope :)

I take it your based in London at the moment?

[Ben]

I meant to comment earlier, but the procrastination is strong with me now...

This discussion triggered off all sorts of bells in my head. I'm gathering a bunch of research that I've seen at academic conferences in recent years that addresses more than a few of the points Drew and Joe and Mark raised and may point to, if not solutions, perhaps not even directions for solutions, but indications of directions that are worth thinking about.