Syd Mead obit

Syd Mead: 'Pivotal' Blade Runner designer dies

He was not on the list.



Artist Syd Mead, who was best known for his designs on the sci-fi film Blade Runner, has died in California at the age of 86.

The dystopian 1982 classic, directed by Ridley Scott, was loosely based on a Philip K Dick novel.

Mead worked as a concept designer on the film, as well as on others including Star Trek, Aliens and Tron.

He died on Monday of complications from lymphoma. His death was confirmed to the press by his husband Roger Servick.



Mead - who began his career as an industrial designer for the Ford Motor Company - was due to receive the Art Directors Guild's William Cameron Menzies Award at the organisation's annual ceremony in February.

Last month, ADG president Nelson Coates said Mead had played "a pivotal role in shaping cinema", noting his "singular ability to visualise the future".

He added: "As one of the most influential conceptual artists of our time, his visions and illustrations of future technological worlds will remain as a testament to his vast imagination.


In an interview in 2015, Mead explained where he got the inspiration for his futuristic city landscapes in Blade Runner, which was set in Los Angeles in the distant 2019.

"For a city in 2019, which isn't that far from now, I used the model of Western cities like New York or Chicago that were laid out after the invention of mass transit and automobiles, with grids and linear transport," he told Curbed.


"I thought, we're at 2,500 feet now, let's boost it to 3,000 feet, and then pretend the city has an upper city and lower city. The street level becomes the basement, and decent people just don't want to go there."

He added: "In my mind, all the tall buildings have a sky lobby, and nobody goes below the 30th floor, and that's the way life would be organised."


Engineer and technology entrepreneur Elon Musk was among those paying tribute on Twitter.


Mead also designed the much-loved Johnny 5 robot for the 1986 comedy science film Short Circuit, about a military robot that gains humanlike intelligence after being struck by lightning.


In 2013, Mead was reminded by Autoline journalist John McElroy that he had predicted the emergence of the self-driving car, or "electric herd", back in 1980, comparing it to a horse being able to carry a drunk cowboy home from the saloon.

In an NPR interview in 2011, Mead declared: "To me, science fiction is reality ahead of schedule".

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.


With his own company in the 1970s, Mead spent about a third of his time in Europe, primarily to provide designs and illustrations for Philips, and he continued to work for international clients.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 1983, Mead was invited by Chrysler Corporation to be a guest speaker to its design staff. He created a series of slides to provide visuals to the lecture, and the resulting presentation was a success. It was later expanded and enhanced with computer-generated images specifically created at the requests of several clients, including Disney, Carnegie Mellon University, Purdue University, Pratt Institute and the Society of Illustrators. In March 2010, Mead completed a four-city tour of Australia.


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," and that "I've called science fiction 'reality ahead of schedule.'" In 2018, Mead published his autobiography, titled A Future Remembered.

Mead is best known for his work on films such as Blade Runner. Some of Mead's concept art is visible in the background of the second image.

Mead worked with major studios on the feature films Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner, Tron, 2010, Short Circuit, Alien, Aliens, Timecop, Johnny Mnemonic, Mission: Impossible III, and Blade Runner 2049. George Lucas created the AT-AT for his Star Wars saga based on art by Mead. 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.


In May 2007, he completed work on a documentary of his career with the director Joaquin Montalvan entitled Visual Futurist:The Art and Life of Syd Mead. The short 2008 documentary film 2019: A Future Imagined, also explored his works. Mead also appears in movie documentaries such as Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner and Mark Kermode's On the Edge of Blade Runner, and promotional materials such as the DVD extra for Aliens and a promotional short film about the making of 2010.