Toyota Designer - Matt Sperling - video Dailymotion

MotorTrend

Four Wheeler had a chance to spend time with Tundra senior exterior designer Matt Sperling at Toyotaâs Calty Design Research in California

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00:00 [VIDEO PLAYBACK]

00:09 -We could ask almost any car designer, and they'll tell you

00:11 the same story.

00:11 They were sitting in the class, in the back of the

00:13 class, sketching cars in the back of their notebooks.

00:15 And I'm no exception.

00:16 I was doing the same thing.

00:17 I love drawing trucks.

00:18 It's just fun to draw them.

00:19 They're just big and chunky and muscular and kind of cool.

00:23 And they're not super athletic like a sports car.

00:25 And I'm not super athletic either.

00:28 It's like when you see people that have a dog that looks

00:30 like them.

00:30 It's sort of the same in this sort of relationship.

00:33 So yeah, I guess I am kind of a truck owner.

00:35 When there's already sort of a vehicle that has a reputation

00:39 and a positive reputation, it's way more difficult to

00:42 sort of build on top of that.

00:44 If you're doing something from scratch,

00:46 there's no expectations.

00:48 The freedom makes it more exciting from a

00:51 designer's standpoint.

00:53 I thought drawing cars would have been just fun and care

00:56 free, and it's boot camp.

00:59 It's funny nine times out of 10.

01:01 People will gravitate toward the little tiny thumbnail that

01:03 you start with.

01:04 And that's usually what they call a key sketch.

01:07 And even as late as the full-size model process, if

01:11 there's any question about what's going on in the

01:13 modeling process, they'll say, look to the key sketch.

01:17 Obviously, looking at a tiny little pencil scratch on a

01:21 piece of paper, you can't literally translate that into

01:25 a full-size vehicle.

01:26 You're going to see on the road that the idea is to get

01:28 the feeling of that.

01:29 What is it about that sketch that was so enticing to go to

01:34 this stage in the modeling process?

01:35 Obviously, there's something there.

01:38 I need you as the designer to figure that out and implement

01:41 that feeling to this full-size.

01:43 Here's a general idea of where we'd like you

01:45 to begin sketching.

01:47 We actually want you as the designer to come up with

01:51 images that inspire you based on what we

01:53 think we want to see.

01:55 Bring those images to the table.

01:57 Use those to inspire your own designs.

01:59 And then go from there.

02:00 Simple and honest is all you need on a truck.

02:04 Nice blocky section.

02:07 You can also drive yourself crazy going back and forth

02:09 all the time.

02:11 The idea is not to do that.

02:14 There's a lot of honesty that goes into our work.

02:15 There's a lot of pride that goes into our work.

02:19 I mean, you essentially, every time you do a sketch, you're

02:23 putting your heart and soul in everything that you do.

02:25 I think the tundra that's coming up pretty soon, that

02:28 was a huge project for me and for the company.

02:32 I had a lot of involvement on that.

02:34 So maybe there's more of a rewarding factor there.

02:38 It was great to see the thing in its full production set up.

02:43 It's really kind of trippy to see all the stuff that you

02:45 spent months laboring over in sketch form and then taking

02:50 lines on the model to get the lines just right and working

02:53 things out and having your bosses help you out with

02:55 those stuff.

02:56 It's really cool to see it with pretty spotlights on it

02:59 and all lit up and painted and chromed out.

03:02 So that's basically how that project went.

03:04 Usually, a lot of projects are really laborious.

03:07 And that one was not.

03:09 That was a very smooth project.

03:11 And it was super fun to do.

03:12 And it turned out to be pretty successful.

03:14 That's what's kind of cool about trucks.

03:20 They're sort of honest and functional.

03:21 (upbeat music)

03:24 (upbeat music)

Toyota Designer - Matt Sperling

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