Jason Castriota – Car Designer

Jason Castriota was born in White Plains New York and raised in Greenwich Connecticut.  He graduated from Emerson College in Boston and dropped out of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.  He interned at Pininfarina Design Studio, an Italian car design firms notable for names such as the Ferrari, Maserati, Cadillic, et.  At this point in his life, he decided to not return to the US to complete his studies.  He then worked under some other car designers he took part in the productions of cars such as the Ferrari 5999 GTB Fiorano, Maserati GranTurismo, Maserati Birdcage 75^th, and many other concept cars.  As the head designer for special projects, he redesigned some Ferrari cars for many different car collectors, including some American car collectors.  In 2008, Castriota left Pininfarina to become the design director at Stile Bertone, a car design company for cars such as Mercedes Benz, Lamborghini, and Volvo.  In 2010, Jason Castriota was promoted as the new design director for Saab automobile, reporting directly to the CEO.  He is now responsible for interior and exterior designs and design activities as the brand starts to increase its product range and once again renew its name.  He says that he is happy with the new job that was given to him and looks forward to working for a iconic brand such as Sabb Automobiles.  He has also worked and made the car Bertone Mantide (http://www.autoblog.com/2010/03/23/jason-castriota-launching-his-own-design-firm/)

Jason Castriota seems to focus on more of the concept and highly luxury cars during his career, gaining a great position during his internship.  He worked for many car companies such as Ferrari, Masterati, Lamborghini, and Merecedes Benz.  He is highly knowledgeable on meeting the consumers tastes as most of his cars are known and favored among consumers. He was recently interviewed and revealed to the public that he was going to launch his own design firm, thought he has not revealed any hits that it will be an automotive design firm.  He has only revealed that he will design things from furniture to sneakers to water bottles.  His resume includes working with some great known manufacturers, high quality producers, so many were not surprised that they brought it someone from the outside to take control of the design, his first task was to redesign the 9-3, the CEO seems to be impressed with his sketches up to this point.

Ferrari: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_P4/5_by_Pininfarina

Bertone Mantide: http://www.autoblog.com/2010/03/23/jason-castriota-launching-his-own-design-firm/

Maserati: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maserati_GranTurismo

Brad Wilkins - Architect

Brad Wilkins was born in 1960 in the USA and is an American Architect.  Though he was born in America his projects are not limited to just the US, he has projects in China and Dubai.  Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture is where he works at.  He has worked in the Chicago Olympic effort, the world’s tallest building (Burj Khalifa, Dubai), and the first Zero Energy building, the Pearl River Tower.  Zero Energy meaning that its net energy consumption is zero. Brad Wilkins was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He trained with Rocco Yim in Hong Kong and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. He graduated in 2004 from the University of Pennsylvania's School of Design and in 2001 from the University of Utah's architecture program.  He is the son of Utah’s Supreme Court Justice and a Judge.

He was the Senior Designer of the Clean Technology Tower in Chicago: http://eco-thinker.com/sharp-looking-wind-tower-for-chicago/

He was on the design team for the Burj Khalifa in Dubai: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa

He was the designer of the Nanjing Greenland Financial Center in China: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_Square_Zifeng_Tower

He has been given awards such as the Found Member of the Taj Heritage Foundation in India.  In education, he was given the Young Alumni of the Year, University of Utah, 2010.  Brad Wilkins works with Skidmore Ownings and Merrill and Rocco Design Architects.  Rocco Designs is a large Hong Kong architectural firm.  The only project he worked on by himself, with the help of one more person instead of a team, was the Pearl River Tower: http://www.som.com/content.cfm/pearl_river_tower

This is the latest green technology and engineering incorporated into it, the tower’s sculpted body directs wind to a pair of openings at its mechanical floors, where traveling winds pushy turbines which generate energy for the building.  It also contains solar panels, chilled ceiling system, under floor ventilation air, and daylight harvesting.  This tower is located in Guangzhou, China.

His designs mainly seem to be large sky scrapers, ones that come out with a sharp peak on top.  His work is heavily influenced by the research he commits with other architects and he has won many awards for his projects, the Pearl River Tower alone is projected to win 5 awards, it’s near it’s completion.  I am fond of Brad Wilkins work because he seems to make buildings with a high tech appearance, silver looking with all glass and metal of which the color matches the glass.  His structures are cleverly designed to appear as sections piling on top of each other; he works with many different companies and does his projects mainly in Chicago, Dubai, and China.  He has been the designers and senior designer for many of his structures, only being on a designing team for only two of the structure he has managed to create.  He was also chosen to be the designer of the Olympic Stadium team for 2016; he will work alongside venue and urban planning team.  Brad Wilkins is a very accomplished architect, though young only at the age of 34, and he seems to be making many influential decisions around the world.

Hideo Kojima

Hideo Kojima was born in August 24, 1963 in Japan.  He is a video game designer at is currently employed as the head director at Kojima Productions, former VP of Konami Computer Entertainment Japan.  He has worked on many famous titles, such as Metal Gear Solid, which is a strategy based game.  He has been consistently named a influential and innovative game designer by experts and fans.  He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2008 MTV Game Awards and was also honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Game Developers Conference.  As a child, he had to deal with death and gang violence consistently, since he father was a member of a Japanese gang. 

As a child he dreamed to be an artist, but he was discouraged because of the society’s norms, also his father was a artist and he suffered from great finical debt.  When he wanted to write short stories, he is reported having writing stories that were as long as a thousand pages long, but magazines who’ll publish his stories were only looking for 100 page long stories.  In 1998, he became the producer of Metal Gear Solid; only two other Metal Gear games were made before him.  From 1998 to 2010, he has produced 26 Metal Gear games (consoles, computers, and even mobile games).  He produced other games such as Snatchers and Zone in the Enders, though they were not popular enough to make it overseas like Metal Gear Solid was.  He was even asked to work on a Castlevania game.  He even worked on a Super Mario Smash Brothers to add Snake into the game, he has even produced some dramas, giving movies a huge credit of his success, and he was very influenced by them.  He has also done some voice acting and starred in some movies, including producing some movies also.

I like Hideo Kojima’s games because they involve strategy and sneaking around, providing you with a chilly scared feeling when you are playing, especially Metal Gear.  You are a prison escapee and you must sneak around an enemy base trying to find a way out and destroy a machine called Metal Gear.  This is his most popular work and it has been popular enough to go worldwide.  His other works with Castlevania and Snatcher, Snatcher being an investigation game where you go and question people, look up evidence, and acquiring vital information to solve the mystery.  Snatcher was Hideo Kojima’s second video game created; it was also popular enough to get a sequel. 

Storytelling is very difficult. But adding the flavour helps to relay the storytelling, meaning in a cut scene, with a set camera and effects, you can make the users feel sorrow, or make them happy or laugh. This is an easy approach, which we have been doing. That is one point, the second point is that if I make multiple storylines and allow the users to select which story, this might really sacrifice the deep emotion the user might feel.  That quote talks about his mentality as a game designer.

http://unrealitymag.com/index.php/2009/07/10/metal-gear-solid-the-childrens-book/

Acura TL

The Acura car brand, from Honda Motors Company, is the luxury brand of Honda.  The Acura TL series is Acura's best selling vehicle and has been ranked in the number 2 spot for best selling luxury sedan in the US, behind the BMW M3.  Acura builds their cars with top quality equipment and generally last a long time, as mine has been running, and still is, for 200K miles.  Acura cars are generally very large cars, but a size that isn't a problem for parking and controlling to stay within your own lane. 

The TL brand of Acura is designed for speed and power, while giving it a look of luxury with a leather interior and a sleek attractive design.  It features a design in which the car comes to form a point in the front, like a blade.  The car comes with a dual exhaust, 225+ horsepower, and it looks kind of sporty and aggressive looking but not mean like a muscle car, while being elegant and graceful.  Not only that, but the Acura TL also pulls off a look of luxury, while being just as powerful as a sports car.

The TL I own, 1999, rides smoothly even though the engine has exceeded 200K miles and I have yet to get work done on it, except once.  The transmission of the car runs great and the acceleration is perfect, quick, while the handling is not too sensitive.  The interior is composed of leather and their consoles are well set to be perfectly organized instead of just throwing junking into it.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acura_TL
http://www.acura.com/InteractiveShowRoom.aspx?model=TL#/interior_console
http://www.acura.com/PhotoGallery.aspx?model=TL&modelYear=2011&context=photos-videos#/image8

Nissan 350Z

Near the end of the 20^th Century, Nissan’s “Z” line wasn’t selling in the US and was costing the company large sums of money.  Recalls of the models had to be made and Nissan was looking for an answer to it’s problem.

“Certainly, the low sales of the specialty sports car had sunk to unsustainable levels. A three-sedan strategy being pursued at Nissan North America at that time addressed the majority of the market's needs and made sound business sense. But the emotive edge the Nissan brand had always possessed was missing the focal point the Z provided.”

American’s were changing their trend to purchase more powerful cars; the Asian market couldn’t provide them.  The creation of the 350Z brought Nissan back to life and back into the competition to compete at a global level once again, because the 350Z provided the power and luxury look the Americans were looking to purchase.

 Ajay Panchal (Coventry University, ) designed the Nissan 350Z, from Nissan Design America, in his twenties, providing an innovative design that is still popular today.

http://www.horsepowerfreaks.com/pictures/Nissan/350Z

The design of the Nissan 350Z to sound loud with a large exhaust system, bringing the look of power, and with a low sleek design in with the aerodynamics favor the cars ability to accelerate.

“The 350Z engine design needed to offer both good low-end torque for powerful acceleration from a standing start and excellent top-end breathing for high-speed merging and passing. Around-town drivability was important. No lumpy cams or hair-trigger turbos would do.”

Tinker Hatfield

Tinker Hatfield is the designer of many of Nike's popular and innovative shoes, including the Jordan brand.  In high school he was an all-state selection as basketball player, football player, and an All-American in track and field, leading to him being named as the athlete of the year in 1970 for high school athletes in Oregon.  He then attended the University of Oregon where he ran track for coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman, and at one time had the pole vault record at the school. Academically, he studied architecture and graduated from the University of Oregon school of Architecture (http://www.ask.com/wiki/Tinker_Hatfield)

Some of his designs include Air Jordan III through Air Jordan XV, the twentieth anniversary Air Jordan XX, the final numbered Air Jordan, the XXIII, the 2010 (XXV) and other athletic sneakers.

Air Jordan XII
http://blog.crazyjordans.com/2008/12/13/december-26-2008-release-of-air-jordan-xi-air-jordan-xii-countdown-package-the-most-wanted/

These shoes are designed with Jordan's logo on the tongue of the shoe and a red colored spot on the outside of the shoe.  This shoe also contains Jordan's basketball jersey number, 23, on the heel of the shoe, on a black stripe going all the way up the back of the shoe.  The verticals lines with the threads seem to bring a nice appeal to the shoe.

Air Jordan X
http://sneakernews.com/air-jordan-brand-jordan/air-jordan-10/air-jordan-x-10-1995-original-chicago-bulls-white-black-true-red/

This shoe is not designed the same as Jordan XII, but was released earlier than the Air Jordan XII.  This shoe does not have a Jordan logo on the tongue of the shoe, but instead, there is a large Jordan logo on the back of the shoe, adding an appeal to it.  The designed of the shoe is rather plain, but the those still becomes attractive to the eye.  The material they used to design the upper half was a good choice, the color scheme of the shoe makes a good match, red bottom and top, intermediate from top and bottom is black, and right in the middle is white.