ASTON MARTIN DESIGN STUDIO
As a coolbrands council member I get the odd invitation to something a bit glam. Last week it was Aston Martin, inviting me up to see their new design studio in a field somewhere up the M40
Apart from drooling over some very pretty, muscular super-cars, the biggest wow of the night was the revelation that the design process still starts with sketches on paper and moves on to a scale clay model before it hits any computer.
The silver stuff is just vinyl they stick over the clay to get it as close to the finished look as possible. It’s interesting and not at all surprising that this is still the best way to see whether something works or not and to be able to judge the physical presence of each form and shape.
I was invited to have a little sculpt but it did feel a bit weird digging a knife into the bonnet of a would be £100k motor.
One of the cheesier moments was walking through a James Bond style bullet hole to see all the famous Bond Astons, including the one above which Daniel Craig totaled in Casino Royale (although we were reassured that it was unflippable and thus required some serious explosives)
If you’ve got a few minutes and you can make out what he’s saying in these not too perfect sound conditions, here’s Ulrich Bez’s address from the night where he talks about how it’s good to be small again (they just left Ford). He’s quite a smooth guy and think he’d wear a smoking jacket very well.
