Speaker 1: This episode of tech Stuff is sponsored by Nissan. Welcome
Speaker 1: to tech Stuff a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, and
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm
Speaker 1: an executive producer with iHeartRadio and How the tech are
Speaker 1: you Now. I don't often spend much time on this
Speaker 1: show talking about the actual design process when it comes
Speaker 1: to tech. I might talk about discoveries and innovations, or
Speaker 1: ways that people figured out how to take an innovation
Speaker 1: and then make a product based on it. I've also
Speaker 1: talked about how developments like three D printing aka additive
Speaker 1: manufacturing have revolutionized tech by streamlining the process from going
Speaker 1: from the concept to the physical. Mena festation of that concept,
Speaker 1: But what goes into actually designing a product? So in
Speaker 1: this episode, using our sponsor Nissan as the model, I
Speaker 1: thought I would talk about the design process for a vehicle.
Speaker 1: And just like your typical vehicle, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of moving parts. Designers and engineers have to take into account,
Speaker 1: everything from the technical specifications of the engine to the
Speaker 1: ergonomics of the cabin. In some cases it might mean
Speaker 1: tweaking an older design, and others it could literally be
Speaker 1: a case of going back to the drawing board now, y'all.
Speaker 1: I believe in being transparent with my episodes. When I
Speaker 1: was approached with the opportunity to work with Nissan to
Speaker 1: talk about the art and science of design, I got excited.
Speaker 1: See the auto industry in general, a Nissan in particular,
Speaker 1: have known that design is absolutely critical. You have to
Speaker 1: create a design that resonates with people. And because we're
Speaker 1: talking about a vehicle that carries real life human beings,
Speaker 1: you need it to be safe. You need to be secure,
Speaker 1: and you need it to be compelling. The experience of
Speaker 1: using the technology needs to be a positive one. A
Speaker 1: lot of us spend a whole lot of time in
Speaker 1: our vehicles, and if that time is uncomfortable or unsatisfying, well,
Speaker 1: that can translate into poor sales. When you consider how
Speaker 1: much money goes into the development and then the manufacturing
Speaker 1: of a vehicle, you start to see how large a
Speaker 1: challenge it is to design something that checks all the boxes. Plus,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. Brie Larsen is a spokesperson for Nissan.
Speaker 1: She hosts a lot of videos that give an overview
Speaker 1: of the company's design philosophy and processes, and I hoped
Speaker 1: I could land her for an episode of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: but it turns out she's busy with something called the Marvels.
Speaker 1: So my plans to have her on the show while
Speaker 1: I talk about how great she was, and Scott Pilgrim
Speaker 1: kind of went nowhere. That being said, Bri, You're welcome
Speaker 1: on the show anytime. So let's talk about design in Nissan.
Speaker 1: So over the years we can see trends come and
Speaker 1: go with the auto industry. Some of those trends might
Speaker 1: seem kind of puzzling when viewed by today's driver. So,
Speaker 1: for example, in the nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: the years of my childhood, there was a tendency for
Speaker 1: vehicles to have really boxy designs with lots of sharp
Speaker 1: angles and flat surfaces. Finding a curve incorporated into a
Speaker 1: vehicle in those days was rare unless you were looking
Speaker 1: at luxury vehicles. It's not like cars from older generations
Speaker 1: were all boxy. If you go further back, classic cars
Speaker 1: had beautiful curves worked into them, So you might be
Speaker 1: tempted to think that there was some practical reason for
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties vehicles to go with these sharp
Speaker 1: angles and straight lines like maybe it was easier to
Speaker 1: manufacture vehicles that way or something, but really a big
Speaker 1: reason for the change was simply that in America, tastes
Speaker 1: were changing. The boxy cars were bigger, with more interior space.
Speaker 1: There wasn't so much concern about not taking up too
Speaker 1: much room, and gas was cheap in the early seventies,
Speaker 1: so there was less of a consumer push for vehicles
Speaker 1: to have aerodynamic designs and to really emphasize things like
Speaker 1: fuel economy. So we got an era of big, powerful,
Speaker 1: boxy cars because that's what people wanted. However, toward the
Speaker 1: second half of that span of time, the boxy cars
Speaker 1: got a lot smaller because the world went through an
Speaker 1: oil crisis. The story behind that is a complicated one.
Speaker 1: But while the cars were smaller, they were still kind
Speaker 1: of boxy, and it wasn't until the mid nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: that companies began to introduce curved lines in car bodies
Speaker 1: again for American drivers, and the change proved to be popular.
Speaker 1: So one major part of design is common sense. You
Speaker 1: need to design something that appeals to people. Now, maybe
Speaker 1: you're following a trend, something that you already know people want,
Speaker 1: because well, that's what they're buying already, or maybe you're
Speaker 1: taking a risk and you're creating a design that is
Speaker 1: outside the norm with the hope that your work will
Speaker 1: become the new trend. In the tech world, we've seen
Speaker 1: a few of these moments where a company introduces a
Speaker 1: product that doesn't fit a mold, but then defines a
Speaker 1: new mold. It is hard to do, but when it works,
Speaker 1: buckle up. Of course, the design of a vehicle goes
Speaker 1: beyond esthetics. There are practical considerations as well, whether it
Speaker 1: is reducing drag to increase fuel efficiency, adjusting the size
Speaker 1: because you plan to put a larger engine under the
Speaker 1: hood and you can't do it if it's too small,
Speaker 1: or you have this crazy idea to incorporate some of
Speaker 1: the features of an suv into a sedan, something Nissan
Speaker 1: has actually done in the past. Those decisions will guide
Speaker 1: a lot of future decisions. It's a marriage of practicality
Speaker 1: and art that goes into industrial design, then a balance that,
Speaker 1: when it is done right, produces a vehicle that performs
Speaker 1: in a delightful way while looking amazing. As it does
Speaker 1: so with some models, just the appearance of the vehicle
Speaker 1: gives you an impression of what it must be like
Speaker 1: to drive it, or to paraphrase my buddy Carl, it's
Speaker 1: going fast, we'll stay in still still what is run deep?
Speaker 1: But how the heck does this process all start? Well,
Speaker 1: typically a vehicle starts in a way that might not
Speaker 1: seem that exciting. It starts as a business plan. So
Speaker 1: if you were to look at a vehicle at the
Speaker 1: very earliest stages of development, you wouldn't see a vehicle
Speaker 1: at all. You wouldn't see a picture, you wouldn't see
Speaker 1: a sketch. What you would see would likely be a
Speaker 1: spreadsheet with a whole bunch of numbers on it. But
Speaker 1: those numbers represent a goal and the journey to that goal.
Speaker 1: That's where all the cool stuff happens. One early consideration
Speaker 1: designers must make is how the driver is going to
Speaker 1: use this vehicle. What is the purpose of the vehicle itself,
Speaker 1: apart from just taking someone from point A to point B.
Speaker 1: Is it meant to be a commuter car? Where someone's
Speaker 1: going to be taking this vehicle every single day to
Speaker 1: and from work and shopping and entertainment and all sorts
Speaker 1: of things. Is it something that's designed for off road adventures?
Speaker 1: A vehicle that needs a lot of cargo space. These
Speaker 1: are questions that will guide teams of designers. They land
Speaker 1: a little bit more on the practical side of considerations,
Speaker 1: and they guide designers so that they can follow the
Speaker 1: best path, one that doesn't compromise on the vehicle's purpose.
Speaker 1: But that's a pretty broad set of guidelines. Beyond that,
Speaker 1: designers look at all sorts of objects to get inspiration
Speaker 1: for a vehicle's design. For example, when designing the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three Nissan Z a sports car, Nissan's team looked
Speaker 1: at the curves of a samuraized sword as part of
Speaker 1: their inspiration. They saw how light would play across the
Speaker 1: blade and use that to guide them when designing part
Speaker 1: of the vehicle's body. And knowing that this was a
Speaker 1: starting point, and then looking at the finished product of
Speaker 1: a twenty twenty three Nissan Z, you can actually see
Speaker 1: where that fits in with the car's design. If you
Speaker 1: look at an image of the Nissan Z, you're looking
Speaker 1: at it from the side, and you focus on the
Speaker 1: silver roof element that's on the side of the vehicle,
Speaker 1: the one that extends from the A pillar on the
Speaker 1: side and then goes all the way down past the
Speaker 1: back window. You see the katana blade there, that's what
Speaker 1: it was modeled after. But the designers also incorporated an
Speaker 1: interesting element that occurs in nature and has a surprising
Speaker 1: tendency to pop up again and again, and they put
Speaker 1: that into the Nissan Z and that was the golden ratio.
Speaker 1: But what the heck does that mean? Well, let's say
Speaker 1: you've got two objects. You have object A and you
Speaker 1: have object B. A is larger than B, and we
Speaker 1: can express the difference in size as a ratio. Now,
Speaker 1: we could do that if things were really simple, in
Speaker 1: a very easy way. So if A were twice the
Speaker 1: size of B, we would say A is to B,
Speaker 1: but it is not to B. Wait, what's the question?
Speaker 1: Before I go on a hamlet tangent, let me get
Speaker 1: back to the golden ratio. So the ratio is not
Speaker 1: two times. Rather, the ratio is one point six '
Speaker 1: one eight zero, three, three, nine, and then a bunch
Speaker 1: of numbers extending into infinity forever endeavor. But what is
Speaker 1: special about this particular ratio. Well, if you take object
Speaker 1: A and you compare it to object B, and you say,
Speaker 1: object A is this ratio times as large as object B?
Speaker 1: That's one thing. If you add A and B together
Speaker 1: to create a larger object. Something really interesting happens because
Speaker 1: you get a new object. Let's say object A plus B,
Speaker 1: which we will rename as objects C. This is the
Speaker 1: larger one that represents the combination of the first two.
Speaker 1: If we combine object C with the original object A,
Speaker 1: we'll see that same ratio holds true that A is
Speaker 1: to B as A plus B is to A. And
Speaker 1: you can repeat this. You can do this over and over.
Speaker 1: You can add A to C and you create an
Speaker 1: even larger object D, and D will have this same
Speaker 1: ratio relationship to C. So this mathematic curiosity inspired countless
Speaker 1: philosophers throughout antiquity to pursue all sorts of paths while
Speaker 1: exploring this ratio and its implications. And it also inspired
Speaker 1: artists to incorporate this ratio into their works. And you
Speaker 1: can find the golden ratio represented in many different artistic endeavors,
Speaker 1: from tilework to architecture. And in the twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: Nissan z the designers purposefully built elements of the vehicle
Speaker 1: to be in alignment with the golden ratio because for
Speaker 1: centuries it's been thought of as esthetically pleasing. Now you
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't notice this without someone pointing it out. Unnless
Speaker 1: you happen to be one of those ancient philosophers who
Speaker 1: are absolutely gaga about maths. But it does make a difference.
Speaker 1: It makes an impact, even if you cannot articulate why
Speaker 1: it does. Now, before you start getting into specifics like
Speaker 1: a katana blade or the golden ratio, you have to
Speaker 1: work out your ideas, and designers typically start with a sketch.
Speaker 1: That sketch could be old school. There's some designers who
Speaker 1: use paper and pencils to create their sketches. They will
Speaker 1: start off with basic shapes and they'll refine their ideas
Speaker 1: from there. They'll add color, they might even add some effects,
Speaker 1: like create some little blurder lines in the back to
Speaker 1: give the impression of a vehicle in motion. Or they
Speaker 1: might start with something much more high tech, like a
Speaker 1: waycom tact and they'll create a digital two dimensional sketch
Speaker 1: of their ideas. But generally speaking, the first visually appealing
Speaker 1: part of the design process is a two dimensional sketch.
Speaker 1: This initial sketch is really just a starting point, and
Speaker 1: the designer will likely go through many versions before honing
Speaker 1: in on what will be the actual design to be
Speaker 1: used as the generative element for the whole vehicle. In fact,
Speaker 1: the early finished sketches can be abstract. They might give
Speaker 1: a sense of shapes and colors, of lines and reflective surfaces.
Speaker 1: They're there to impart a feeling that this car was
Speaker 1: meant to go fast, or this car is meant to
Speaker 1: take you on an adventure. Ideally, the sketch marries form
Speaker 1: and function. It looks like the type of vehicle that
Speaker 1: will take your breath away but also be perfectly suited
Speaker 1: for its intended purpose. Those sketches aren't just for car
Speaker 1: exteriors either. Artists will also sketch out cabin interiors and
Speaker 1: the like, giving a hint at the color schemes, the materials,
Speaker 1: the positioning of controls, the ergonomics of the car's interior.
Speaker 1: These sketches can also hint at what the driving experience
Speaker 1: is aiming for. So what happens after this flurry of sketches, Well,
Speaker 1: we'll get to that after we take this quick break
Speaker 1: for a word from our sponsor. So we've created a
Speaker 1: bunch of sketches. Where do we go from here? The
Speaker 1: design team has to select which sketch is really going
Speaker 1: to be representative of where this vehicle is headed from
Speaker 1: a design perspective, of course, and then it's time to
Speaker 1: hand that over to a three dimensional design team. To
Speaker 1: be clear, everyone on the design team is three dimensional.
Speaker 1: I just mean this particular team specializes in creating virtual
Speaker 1: three dimensional models. So it's their job to take this
Speaker 1: two dimensional sketch and, using software like ALIAS, build out
Speaker 1: a virtual three dimensional model. These tools, these software pieces
Speaker 1: are collaborative and they include computer assist features, and they
Speaker 1: make it much easier to adjust a design, which allows
Speaker 1: the team to iterate quickly and even pivot if necessary.
Speaker 1: So if it turns out that something that was in
Speaker 1: the original sketch is impractical or impossible, they can make
Speaker 1: adjustments to that without going all the way back to
Speaker 1: the beginning. The virtual three dimensional model can be viewed
Speaker 1: on a computer screen. It can be imported into an
Speaker 1: environment where someone can don a VR headset and carry
Speaker 1: a controller, and then can virtually walk around the model
Speaker 1: and see what it would look like in person. The
Speaker 1: three dimensional model has to accommodate for all the technical
Speaker 1: requirements of this vehicle, so it's not just the aesthetics.
Speaker 1: It has to also be there to allow for things
Speaker 1: like the powertrain for the vehicle that has to be
Speaker 1: built into this model as well. And design software has
Speaker 1: really come a long way over the years, so these
Speaker 1: days this software can simulate all sorts of lighting conditions,
Speaker 1: for example, so designers can actually see what a vehicle
Speaker 1: would look like at noon or at sunset, or in
Speaker 1: the light of street lamps. You can even export designs
Speaker 1: so that they can be milled out of clay or
Speaker 1: foam and create a real world three dimensional model based
Speaker 1: on this virtual computer model. Now, just because you can
Speaker 1: have a milling machine guided by computers cut out the
Speaker 1: basic shape of a vehicle in a block of clay
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that sculptors. Human sculptors don't play an important
Speaker 1: part too. They do. A milling machine can reduce an
Speaker 1: enormous block of clay to a vehicle design, but it's
Speaker 1: the team of sculptors who come in to refine that
Speaker 1: rough cut into something special. They use tools that are
Speaker 1: descended from centuries of artistry and by hand. They use
Speaker 1: these tools to shape that model, to define edges, to
Speaker 1: create curved surfaces, to use site and touch to get
Speaker 1: the feel of the vehicle just right, something that a
Speaker 1: machine can't do. They work as a team to reach
Speaker 1: the goal envisioned in those early sketches, to create something
Speaker 1: that people will want to interact with. So while the
Speaker 1: clay model might begin with a computer, the human artists
Speaker 1: are the ones to mold the vehicle from there. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: after this step, it's time to get the vehicle designed
Speaker 1: back into the virtual realm. Nissan uses sophisticated optical scanners
Speaker 1: to get a precise three D model of the sculpted clay.
Speaker 1: So we start with a two dimensional sketch, we go
Speaker 1: to a virtual three dimensional model. We then go to
Speaker 1: a real world three dimensional model from clay that then
Speaker 1: gets reshaped and refined by artists, and then we scan
Speaker 1: that to create a new virtual three dimensional model. Eventually,
Speaker 1: this design process narrows in on what will be the
Speaker 1: final design, and the information that was used to create
Speaker 1: that finalized virtual model then can be used for the
Speaker 1: actual manufacturing process. The stamping dies and the production molds
Speaker 1: that are used in manufacturing can come from this data.
Speaker 1: There are other departments that also play an integral role
Speaker 1: in determining what the finished vehicle is going to look
Speaker 1: like and how it will perform. This also includes things
Speaker 1: like color design. These teams elect the colors that will
Speaker 1: give the vehicle its own personality. That includes both the
Speaker 1: exterior and the interior colors, with a guiding principle being harmony,
Speaker 1: a harmony between the intent of the vehicle and its appearance.
Speaker 1: A car that's meant to thrill needs to have a
Speaker 1: color palette to match. After all, that also includes the
Speaker 1: actual materials used for the interior. How are they going
Speaker 1: to feel, how is it going to look, how are
Speaker 1: they going to capture color? How will they reflect light?
Speaker 1: All of these considerations play a part and ideally are
Speaker 1: in alignment with the intent the purpose of this vehicle.
Speaker 1: It's pretty remarkable how every decision in the design process
Speaker 1: has to do several things. It's like having multiple bosses
Speaker 1: and you have to please all of them because the
Speaker 1: design needs to meet the requirements of that initial business plan.
Speaker 1: It needs to perform in a specific way depending upon
Speaker 1: the intended function of the vehicle. It needs to evoke
Speaker 1: an emotion, It needs to be esthetically pleasing. If the
Speaker 1: process fails in any of these duties, it can mean
Speaker 1: going back to the drawing board, sometimes literally. So a
Speaker 1: quick word about the twenty twenty three models Nissan has designed,
Speaker 1: because I think it's fun to know what sort of
Speaker 1: influenced the designers as they worked in those early stages,
Speaker 1: as they sketched and three D modeled and sculpted. I
Speaker 1: already mentioned that the Z, Nissan's sports car, incorporates the
Speaker 1: Katana as part of the vehicle's design. There's also the Frontier,
Speaker 1: a truck that with a grill that took inspiration from
Speaker 1: warrior helmets, which I think is amazing, this idea of
Speaker 1: really being able to tackle the world like a warrior
Speaker 1: in this in this truck. And then there's the Aria,
Speaker 1: which Kon says followed a Japanese concept of welcoming openness.
Speaker 1: The Aria is a crossover vehicle. It's an all electric
Speaker 1: suv with really cool inset button controls that light up
Speaker 1: on the interior surfaces of the car. Honestly, as I
Speaker 1: watched video demonstrations of the vehicle, it made it seem
Speaker 1: like you're in a spacecraft. I really really dug it.
Speaker 1: I really want to be inside one. I have not
Speaker 1: actually set foot in an Aria yet. So in their
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three models, Nissan's goal was to create designs
Speaker 1: that impart the feeling of what it must be like
Speaker 1: to drive those vehicles before you even opened a door,
Speaker 1: let alone turned it on. By the time a car
Speaker 1: rolls off the production line, dozens of people have played
Speaker 1: a critical part in the vehicle's look, feel, and operation,
Speaker 1: all aligned with this goal of imparting a specific emotional
Speaker 1: response the thrill of driving. To me, this entire process
Speaker 1: is incredibly inspiring because it's going from the psychology of
Speaker 1: human beings, how we react when we see something that
Speaker 1: appeals to us. It also incorporates both traditional and modern
Speaker 1: techniques for design, everything from shaping clay to using additive processing.
Speaker 1: Three D printing can play a big part as you're
Speaker 1: printing out specific components to see how they fit in
Speaker 1: with the overall concept of a vehicle. It's this marriage
Speaker 1: of the traditional and the modern that I find really interesting.
Speaker 1: It isn't all about let's abandon the old way because
Speaker 1: we have a new way. It's how do these things
Speaker 1: work together in harmony to produce the result that we
Speaker 1: have intended. And in the case of Nissans vehicles, it
Speaker 1: really makes a lot of sense because you start to
Speaker 1: see where that appeal really comes through, and you realize,
Speaker 1: if we left this all up to automated processes, we
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't end up with anything even remotely as esthetically
Speaker 1: pleasing and thrilling as what we get through the marriage
Speaker 1: of all of these methodologies working together. I want to
Speaker 1: thank Nissan for sponsoring this episode. It's always fun to
Speaker 1: really take into consideration what has to happen for a
Speaker 1: product to come together. Often I just look at how
Speaker 1: the product works and the various technologies that allow it
Speaker 1: to work, without really considering how did teams decide what
Speaker 1: that product would look like and how it would feel
Speaker 1: to use it. So putting myself in that mindset, it's
Speaker 1: a bit of a stretch, and you know what, we
Speaker 1: could all use a stretch now and then in the
Speaker 1: middle of the day. Thanks for listening to this episode.
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed it. I will talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.