The Pictures above are the 3 point Front upper Strut Bar and 4 point Lower Arm Bar for Proton Perdana V6.
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Ctech Chassis Tuners Stabilizing Bars
The Pictures above are the 3 point Front upper Strut Bar and 4 point Lower Arm Bar for Proton Perdana V6.
Congratulations NC State College of Design!
Business Week turned to an international panel of 22 expert design and brand consultants and academics to name the NC State College of Design on their Top 60 Best Design Schools in the World! We are in the company of Hong Kong Polytechnic, RISD, Pratt, and CCS. Check out the other 59 on this interactive table.Also in the news, our Dean Marvin Malecha has been named Design Intelligence Most Admired Educators for 2009! (and I certainly agree!)
Congratulations NC State, College of Design, and Dean Marvin!
Racing the Clock
I woke up this morning with the reality of having exactly 2 weeks before I begin interviewing nearly 70 professionals in the automotive textile industry. Every day is now part of the count down!
This Week
I'm giving myself 1 more week to focus on researching the factors that have influenced trends in body cloth motif, scale, and color. During these past few weeks, I have also been researching trend cycles. Although this information will not be presented in the interviews, I hope to compare previously observed trend cycles with those I have uncovered. I have found some very unique historical research such as that by Richardson and Krobler, which tracks women's fashion through 3 centuries of changing dress width and length, or Robinson's studies on men's facial hair and American automobile size. Other trends that I'm sure have impacted this industry include national and expendable income, increase in globalization and the impact of foreign automotive markets, and times of war and natural disaster (just to name a few). I hope to learn about much of this through the interview process, which I'm sure will also reveal many factors I may not have considered.
Analysis
In order to discover factors, I am first acknowledging the cycles, peaks and troughs of motif, scale, and color trends. I am looking for critical dates and asking the question, "what made this happen?". The potential factors are limitless. By noting critical dates first, I should be narrowing my scope to only the factors that had noticeable effects.
Also this week, I have become a manager (what?). I have realized that I've gone in a little too deep with the amount of time remaining before I begin interviews.
How did I get here? Well, I'm usually wonderful about over-estimating the time it will take to complete a task, and I have been so generous with each of my due-dates. I have also been careful about reevaluating my goals with the time remaining at each step. Reaching out to contacts, however, is what did me in. Since March, I have been in light contact with a few key players who have helped me organize my list and collect information. July 1 is the date I set to send initial contact letters to potential interview participants. It is 3 1/2 weeks later and I am still spending a few hours each day on the phone, replying to emails, or searching for contact information for emails that have bounced back and retirees who have moved. I knew this would happen- but certainly not to this extent!
What's the new plan? The solution was quite simple (although costly). I have hired 2 of my very wonderful friends from the College of Textiles, who are well-versed in color, to work with the color analysis, Sara Yasin and Emily Hanhan. A few weeks ago I created a color table classification system (shown a few posts back) and a spreadsheet for the data to be recorded. I ran about 7 trial years and realized that my eye was being far too picky and taking far too long. Sara and Emily are working from 2 different ends of the time spectrum and will meet in the middle. This process is a simple matter of classification and counting, but it is "mind-numbing" and time-consuming and I just don't think I could be prepared for what August and September have in store for me without their help. (Thanks ladies!)
So now I have a fun-filled weekend of playing "what are the factors?" and have the goal of leaving the apartment a total of 1 time (yes, I've become a bit of a hermit). I guess next week I will update on what's in store just 1 week prior to interviews. Thanks for the support!
Also...I apologize for not adding images of my trend cycles. We'll all just have to wait until my thesis has been submitted and approved for publications so that I'm protecting myself from all that legal whoop-la. August 16th you can expects lots of pictures of lots of really amazing cars from Pebble Beach!
Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance tickets are BOOKED!
Today is a VERY happy day!I'm sure most of you know by now that the reason I am a car girl is because of my dad. While I like new and shiny, I have the nostalgia of a 70-year-old when it comes to cars (and music). Vintage will never go out of style and this is proven by the thousands of Antique Automobile Clubs, Classic Car Clubs, and Society of Automotive Historians across the globe. Any car enthusiast knows that the creme de la creme of "car shows" in the world is the annual Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance!
This annual affair has raised over $12 million for charity since its initiation in 1950 and includes a series of related events such as the Pebble Beach Tour d'Elegance, Pebble Beach RetroAuto, the Pebble Beach Auction,
Each year only 175 of the most prized collectors cars in the world are invited to appear on the famed eighteenth fairway of Pebble Beach Golf Links each year. To contend in the Concours d'Elegance, an automobile must be a well preserved or accurately restored vehicle still quite capable of doing what it was meant to do- be driven. It will almost certainly have some historic value- perhaps in its day it served to debut new technology or new styling trends or it has an amazing racing record. And it will be rare- possibly a singular example of a special chassis bearing a respected coachbuilder's art. After all these criteria have been met, a concours car must be one thing more. Above all, it must be elegant. And elegance is a matter of the eye and heart.
“There is no such thing as a score sheet for elegance. It’s largely a matter of taste, recognition of design advantages, and knowledge of the performance and quality of the total architectural concept.”
– Strother MacMinn, Renowned Automotive Designer and Former Chief Honorary Judge at Pebble Beach
“From a strictly personal point of view, my definition of an elegant car would be ‘the kind of car I would like to be buried in.’”
– Ansel Adams, Photographer and former Honorary Judge
at Pebble Beach
– Strother MacMinn, Renowned Automotive Designer and Former Chief Honorary Judge at Pebble Beach
“From a strictly personal point of view, my definition of an elegant car would be ‘the kind of car I would like to be buried in.’”
– Ansel Adams, Photographer and former Honorary Judge
at Pebble Beach
Please be sure to check out the Concours website, notably the History page, which scrolls through a timeline of notable cars and events since the shows initiation in 1950.
Oh...and by the way....the Chairman the show since 2002...is a woman: Sandra Kasky Button. Now that's a job I could have fun with!
All images and information are provided by the Pebble Beach Concours website: http://www.pebblebeachconcours.net/
And in a side note: Congratulations USA! 40 Years since our first steps on the moon!
Zero 2 Hero Qualifiers
Have been busy recently so haven't really been updating my blog. Sorry viewers. So the pics below is the contest I went for which is the Zero to Hero Tv reality Rally show. Went through the qualifying but unfortunately didn't went through for the 2nd qualifying round. Did well in it as a co pilot which my job is to navigate and my driver is david yap. He did his best in it already and no blaming against each other as a team. So on that day itself, We are using a 1.0 champion white Perodua Kelisa with some rally specs on. Because formally that car is use as recce in a rally race to optimize and look out for the caution parts on the track. So let the picture do the talking.
Back from NYC
The City must love me :)
The weather was perfect the entire time I was in New York, and I was welcomed back to North Carolina on Sunday to 99*F and 12 new mosquito bites. But I also got to spend a surprise evening with my whole family because they were in town celebrating my sister's birthday!
And now...it is back to the research world!
I have exactly 25 days before I leave for the interview portion of my research in Michigan, California, and North and South Carolina. So its time to center myself again and see what's left:
1) COLOR ANALYSIS 1960-2006 (July 13-19)
2) CONTACT INTERVIEWEES (July 13- August 7)
3) FACTORS portion of Literature Review (July 20-31)
4) Create a MODEL demonstrating the relationship between Observed Trends and Researched Factors (August 3-6)
5) Finalize Travel Plans based around Interview Schedules (August 3-6)
Lets just see if I can pull this off! There's little time for error or the unexpected, but there are very few interruptions in the upcoming weeks and I'm confident that I can keep my head in the game!
Color Analysis Scale
Hello from Brooklyn!
I've spent the past few days absorbing the culture of Brooklyn, New York. This is certainly a different world from Manhattan and I'm loving it! I'm staying with a friend from CoT and we've surrounded ourselves with NC kids throughout the weekend. I just seem to bring beautiful weather with me as its been warm and sunny with a nice breeze- just perfect for lots of time outdoors! Even though I will still be around until Sunday (switching over to Manhattan on Wednesday), I'm going to have to keep myself indoors for the week as deadlines are approaching!
Below is a color scale I've created in order to categorize the DeLeo/Detroit vinyl swatches for color. I still haven't exactly figured out how this will be done, as I currently have 124 different color groups. This chart scale was created based on a digital Munsell scale I found. The image was pixelated so the colors were not pure, which is why I created my own. As you can see there are some inconsistencies in gradation of chroma and value, but for the purpose of this study, I am focusing on color trends in a very general perspective and am doing so by creating color groups. If you have any further suggestions, please let me know!
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