Syd Mead

Mead was born on July 18, 1933, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His father was a Baptist minister, who read him pulp magazines, such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, sparking his interest in science fiction. Mead was skilled in drawing at a young age. According to Mead, "by the time I was in high school I could draw the human figure, I could draw animals, and I had a sense of shading to show shape. I was really quite accomplished at that point with brush technique and so-forth." He described himself as being an "insular child." ==Career==

'' In 1959, Mead was recruited to Ford Motor Company's Advanced Styling Studio by Elwood Engel. From 1960 to 1961, Mead worked in Ford Motor Company Styling in Detroit, Michigan. Mead left Ford after two years to illustrate books and catalogues for companies including United States Steel, Celanese, Allis-Chalmers and Atlas Cement. In 1970, he launched Syd Mead, Inc. in Detroit with clients including Philips Electronics. Through the 1970s and 1980s, Mead and his company provided architectural renderings, both interior and exterior, for clients including Intercontinental Hotels, 3D International, Harwood Taylor & Associates, Don Ghia, Gresham & Smith and Philip Koether Architects. Beginning in 1983, Mead developed working relationships with Sony, Minolta, Dentsu, Dyflex, Tiger Corporation, Seibu, Mitsukoshi, Bandai, NHK and Honda. Mead's one-man shows began in 1973 with an exhibit at documenta 6 in Kassel, West Germany. His work was later exhibited in Japan, Italy, California and Spain. In 1993, a digital gallery consisting of 50 examples of his art with interface screens designed by him became one of the first CD-ROMs released in Japan. In 2004, Mead co-operated with Gnomon School of Visual Effects to produce a four-volume "how-to" DVD series titled Techniques of Syd Mead. Regarding his work, Mead said, "the idea supersedes technique," In film Mead worked with major studios on the feature films: Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner, Tron, 2010, Short Circuit, Aliens, Timecop, Johnny Mnemonic, Mission: Impossible III, Elysium, Tomorrowland and Blade Runner 2049. George Lucas and Joe Johnston created the AT-AT for the Star Wars saga based on art by Mead from his U.S. Steel catalogues. Mead also contributed to the Japanese film Solar Crisis. In the 1990s, Mead supplied designs for two Japanese anime series, Turn A Gundam and the unfinished Yamato 2520. ==Personal life and death==

Mead was in a relationship with Roger Servick. They married in 2016. They established a publishing extension, Oblagon, Inc., in Hollywood and relocated in 1998 to Pasadena, California, where Mead continued to work. On December 30, 2019, Mead died in his Pasadena home at age 86, after three years of lymphoma. ==Gallery of works==

File:American Police Hall of Fame - Blade Runner Car.jpg|Blade Runner Car at the American Police Hall of Fame File:Blade Runner - 47102816054.jpg|A police spinner from Blade Runner File:Spinner3.jpg|A car Mead designed for the film Blade Runner File:Cyberrace sled plastic model 4 sides.PNG|A plastic representation of a Cyberrace vehicle File:Police car from “Blade Runner” - 5192543459.jpg|Rick Deckard's car from Blade Runner File:Blade Runner - 47102815404.jpg|The interior of a car from Blade Runner ==See also==

• Ed Naha, "Blade Runner's Syd Mead: An Artist With Designs on the Future", Starlog (USA) May 1982, Iss. 58, pg. 36–39,+61 • The future came true – An Interview with Syd Mead • Syd Mead's interview at Jabučnjak, July 2009