I'm going to be honest here. This talk was amazing so if I ramble on a bit that's why. Just to give this post a bit more structure I am going to talk about the past and future of Frank's designs. So, lets get into it

 

Past

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Frank has worked for some amazing car companies, McLaren, Ferarri, and Maseratti but I want to talk about his ability to revitalise old cars for the modern day. He did this with the design of the new Fiat 500 and Mini Cooper:

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Let's compare these modern takes with the origional cars:

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I see a lot of similarities between the new and origional cars, from the chrome bar on the front of the Fiat to the grill of the Mini. However, it is Frank's ability to make a car look modern but still recognisable that amazes me. If you had seen any of these 4 cars on the road today you would be able to tell exactly what they are, while still recognising the era they belong in.

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The car of Frank's that I want to talk about is a personal favourite of mine. The McLaren P1:

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I still remember the first time hearing about this car on an episode of top gear with Jeremy Clarkson driving around a town in belgium with the car in electric mode. Then upon leaving the town he engaged the petrol engine and the cars 900 HP was unleashed. I was hooked.

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However, Frank mentioned a few really interesting points that inspired the design of the car. The first is the lack of design identity at McLaren. This was one of the first road cars McLaren had made giving Frank complete freedom to design in any way he seen fit. You can really see this in the P1. It looks incredible and completely bonkers. The most impressive thing is that it looks different to the other super cars on the market. It looks nothing like a Ferrari, Bugatti or Lamborgini.

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The next thing that Frank used in the design of the P1 was "biomimickry". This is the idea of using nature to inspire design. Frank used a sail fish in this case:

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I dont see the resemblense but apparently there is some aerodynamic inspiration taked from the fish. Frank says he uses biomimickry as nature is a lot more presice that human design. He also says it allows him to design without consideration for trends or fads. This is because nature is constant and forever. 

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Future

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I was apparent from Frank's talk that he sees the bigger picture for future transportation and living. The first thing he talked about was eVTOL's. These are "Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing" vehicles. This is what they look like:

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My first question was, "What makes this different to an electric helicopter?" Frank then talked about its multiple points of failure which I found really interesting. He said, when a helicopter rotator fails, it crashes, however, when an eVTOL rotator fails there are 5 more that will keep it in the air. The application of these vehicles is also really interesting. They will be like an Uber according to Frank. Getting you from one place to another that is a short distance away. Like from an airprt to a city centre.

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The next design that Frank presented was his approach to space tourism:

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This pod takes a group of people into the stratosphere for 6 hours and costs a tenth of the current cost of a 10 minute trip. The interior design is really smart. Frank recognised the importance of luxury and space in the pod as the people paying for the experience will probably be billionaires. This ability to identify the user's needs is essentail for designers and I believe that Frank is one of the best at designing for it.