Known as a concept designer and visual futurist, Syd Mead is an artist whose works include production designs for the movies Blade Runner, Tron, Aliens, and 2010. He has worked on car prototypes for Ford Motor Company and interiors for the supersonic Concorde. His work has been collected in the books Sentinel, Oblagon and Sentury, among others.

In an interview with Ballistic Publishing, Mead mentioned that he was working on “a series of Hypervan illustrations featuring my notion of the ‘next thing’ in luxurious, high-speed, private transport, featuring in-wheel induction motors, sealed cabin with RGB laminate with stereo/holographic variable eye-point focus and electro-lastic membrane interior surfaces linked to encephalographic monitoring control system.”

“I find that ‘future’ stuff I read about happening ‘now’ I either illustrated twenty or thirty years ago, or have thought about and inserted, visually, into a painting.”

“Keep in mind that object-specific realism needs, most of all, some form of coherent idea behind it.”

“Idea trumps technique every time,” Mead said in the interview. “Don’t assume that technique alone will save your ass. It still is the idea that wins … every time. Remember that elaborate technique and dumb story produces a demo reel, not a narrative.”

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mead described his work on Blade Runner.

“We called the whole look ‘retro deco,’ ” Mead said. “What I did in my imagination was to mash together every architectural style I could think of. So, I violated architectural motif, and it’s funny because architects love that film. Maybe it’s cathartic for them. Because it’s a wholly fabricated world, and the typical thing to do would have been to give it one style.”

“We don’t go into any future barehanded, from zero,” Mead said. “There’s always baggage because the audience has to, in some way, recognize what you’ve designed.”

Syd Mead is the Third Honorary Citizen of Heliopoli.

(Images from www.sydmead.com and www.ballisticpublishing.com.)

It would be presumptious to say that the city of Heliopoli left behind a legacy. It is still not known if there were any inhabitants to carry on its memory, and its builders, if any survive, are silent. Surely, though, it is clear that the aesthetic of the city reflected an aesthetic of the times during which it was built and, perhaps, that aesthetic can be reflected back today. Objects can be found in the present that, whimsically, can remind one of Heliopoli.

The Sorapot, designed by Joey Roth, is one such object. It is a teapot in which the tea leaves are free to steep in a glass tube, floating above one’s tabletop. Once a student of creative writing, Roth, according to his website, “strives to make each product an immersive world.”

“I’ve always been entranced by small, beautiful things that are so detailed, they seem like miniature worlds, yet so ordinary they’re often left unnoticed,” Roth said.

The Sorapot is an economy of design married with function. Though not an exact aesthetic match, one can see in the Sorapot geometries reminiscent of Heliopoli, namely the Tube, the Orb, the Sweeping Curve, Glass, Transparency, and the Arch. If a revolution of design can be found in a teapot while retaining a sense of nostalgia, it abides in the Sorapot. What Roth seems to have achieved most with his design, however, is an evocative spirit that sparks the imagination — in other words, exactly what he set out to do.

“You might even see a tea-colored shadow cast by sunlight that passes through the tube and comes to rest in a gossamer puddle on your table,” Roth said.

The chief archivist and the excavators see worlds pouring from the Sorapot.

We can be nearly certain that 87.4 percent of all furniture in Heliopoli is based on designs by Eero Aarnio.

One of the pioneers in using plastic in industrial design, Aarnio is the designer of the Ball Chair, the Pastil Chair and the Bubble Chair, among others. The Finnish designer was born in 1932 and studied from 1954 to 1957 at the Institute of Industrial Arts in Helsinki. He opened his office as an interior and industrial designer in 1962.

Aarnio designed the Ball Chair in 1963. It was produced some years later in fiberglass, a material that was a novelty for the furniture industry of the time. The ball is built on a swiveling metal base and upholstered with foam and fiberfill. The original colors were white, red, black, and orange.

When sitting in the Ball Chair, sound from the surrounding environment is softened. It lends a feeling of privacy. According to his website, Aarnio himself had one fitted out with a telephone.

Aarnio continued to work in fiberglass after designing the Ball Chair. The resistant, yet workable, material allowed him to design ergonomic forms without restriction.

More recent designs include the Parabel table (1994) and the Focus chair (2000).

The Fourth Honorary Citizen of Heliopoli is Eero Aarnio.

(Images: Downloads and press photos from www.eero-aarnio.com)

The excavators have become intrigued by the criticisms and praise heaped upon Amazon.com’s new e-book reader, the Kindle, and what connections can be made in regard to their explorations of Heliopoli. They have persuaded the chief archivist, at first reluctant, to examine the situation.

After a cursory investigation, only one comment has been found on the Internet in praise of the Kindle’s design aesthetic, calling it “1970s retro styling.” The chief archivist agrees with this praise. Nearly all others decry it. One said it looked like something that fell off the original Battlestar Galactica. Others have called it “dated,” “copied from the Atari 2600″ and from “some 70s alien movie.” What is remarkable beyond the comments themselves is that so many mention the 1970s in connection to the Kindle’s design.

What is it about the Kindle that reminds one of 1970s aesthetics?

Why are 1970s design aesthetics automatically regarded in a negative light?

What conclusions can we draw from an assumption that 1970s design looked to the future, and now that a piece of that future has been made manifest, it is regarded as a relic of the past?

How quickly does design that looks to the future become outdated, even if you eventually are holding a functioning sample of it in your hand?

How does the Kindle kindle these reactions?

The chief archivist, upon first seeing the Kindle, assumed that its design was merely utilitarian. Its white color, its wedge shape and a certain fumbliness of buttons can be ascribed to pure functionality. But then he remembered what the Kindle reminded him of: the Olivetti Divisumma 18.

The Divisumma 18 was a printing calculator made by the Olivetti company in 1973. It was designed by Mario Bellini, who was trained as an architect.

According to an article by Larry Gilbert published in 1998 and reproduced on www.vintagecalculators.com, Bellini’s intention was to “produce a technological product that was totally humanized, almost playful, and that invited human touch.” Gilbert describes the Divisumma 18 as “infused with the Pop spirit of the age” and “a true period icon, appearing in many books that discuss landmark 20th-century designs.”

When the Divisumma 18 was released, something like the Kindle was, of course, science fiction. Now the Kindle is here, and reminds us of the Divisumma 18. The Divisumma projected itself into the future; the Kindle, according to the critics, projects itself into the past.

The Kindle has a wedge-shape design when looked at edge on, meant to reproduce the feel of a book. This recalls the 1975 ad campaign for Triumph’s TR7 sports car, which touted it as “The shape of things to come.” The ad copy reads, “From ancient instinct to computer design, the shape that cleaves the air is the wedge.”

Is there a cultural afterimage retained in the collective mind’s eye that assigns the Kindle’s shape to the past — a shape once ascribed to the future?

Is it better to wish for than to have? We anticipate, as children, our Christmas presents, as we can anticipate the future. When we think about some cool device of the future, we only imagine its perfection, its functionality. When such things become real, there are always flaws: glitches in service, the entropy of battery life, design elements convenient for one type of person and not another, placement of certain buttons that seem illogical, a price that seems too high. It never seems to come into being in that perfect state we wished for.

We do not recognize that catches in design are part of making such things real. We do not recognize that there is always a price to pay. There are manufacturing and other practical considerations to take into account.

Is this the source of negative reaction to the Kindle, even from those who do not yet own one? Has the anticipation of the future set up unrealistic expectations? Are we playing with our Christmas present, only to find it is not as good as wishing for it? The criticisms, at least, will drive improvements in design.

Are only people of a certain age enthusiastic about the Kindle’s design? Not that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had a direct hand in its construction, but perhaps he signed off on certain design elements, if they were not purely functional. He was, after all, born in 1964.

One must wonder if such things contributed to the collapse of Heliopoli. What disappointments were discovered once the city was made manifest? Did the sidewalk pavings develop cracks? Did the pedway rubberized surfaces become frayed on the edges? Did the chrome and glass not remain shiny?

There is always a price to pay.

The chief archivist would like to own a Kindle, for the chance to step into the past.

One can only hope that a future version will be colored orange.

The discovery of a toothbrush at Heliopoli site prompted the following uplink from excavator Marta Simmons:

“On a recent visit to the dentist, I was given, as a parting gift, a marital aid to brush my teeth with.

“Well, it wasn’t a marital aid as such, but it looked like one. It bristled in all directions, like an angry porcupine. It had different kinds of bristles, too, and in different colors. The handle was as curved and angled as a Frank Gehry building.

“It was a toothbrush. At least, that’s what it was supposed to be. It was actually a highly evolved form of toothbrush. Surely it would tear my gums apart. Surely it required an owner’s manual.

“The drive to produce products that are ‘new and improved’ has created a natural selection process in design. Remember the Reach toothbrush? It had an angled handle. Cool. Why didn’t someone think of it before? It worked. Design served function.

But the great-grandchildren of the Reach, after generations of inbreeding, have produced a monstrosity that one is loathe to put in one’s mouth. Like Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, products evolve.

The drive for ‘new and improved’ has lead to a parade of toothbrush designs through the years. Is there a final, perfect form for a toothbrush? Is there a Platonic ideal? Does it look like what I was handed in the dentist’s office? Or will toothbrushes evolve again?

“Lord knows what real marital aids will look like in a couple of years.”

(The chief archivist notes that in Heliopoli the designers did not take into consideration such mundane items as toothbrushes when making guesses about the design of the future. He notes this as a general flaw. The toothbrush found at Heliopoli site is contemporary with the construction of the city. It has a straight handle, straight bristles and the pointy rubber thing at one end. Or were the designers of Heliopoli satisfied that this was, indeed, the endpoint for toothbrush design, that it had reached its Platonic ideal, until the Reach broke the paradigm? Regardless, for all its high-flown superstructures, horizon-spanning plazas, glass expanses, and speedy pedways, Heliopoli ignored the humble toothbrush.)