We have had the wonderful opportunity to interview Richard Duff of General Motors. Richard has most recently worked on the 2010 Buick LaCrosse and the 2010 Buick Invicta. He is doing some amazing work and is definitely helping the Buick brand to produce some heat! Look for these nice looking cars on the road soon!

1. How long have you been a car designer and what is your schooling background? 

My real schooling began from a very young age, growing up around my parent’s business, making cool parts for the Classic Ford Bronco. I was doing exploded views for instruction sheets and cool sketches for T-shirts before I finished high school. I went to Western Washington University, in Bellingham, Washington and got a degree in Engineering Technology, but I took some sketching classes from the Industrial Design department on the side. That led me to go to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, where I finally got a degree in Transportation Design. Now I’ve been working in the car industry as a professional for nearly 6 years. 


2. What is the most important or main design message of the new 2010 Buick LaCrosse? What was the story on the Invicta? 

 The main idea of the LaCrosse was to take some design elements from the great history of Buick and integrate them into a thoroughly modern and appealing design. I wanted to make this a car that would attract new buyers, people that wouldn’t have considered buying a Buick before. 

The Invicta Concept was really a chance for the design team to show the public the direction we wanted to head with Buick in the future. It had the same gesture and form we were putting into the LaCrosse, but a little more drama, bigger wheels and a glass roof. I got to travel to Beijing when we revealed it, and it was very educational to see China, and especially the rapidly developing car market there.


3. Explain how you have felt as you have seen your sketch ideas get more refined and eventually end up as a production vehicle? Were there any elements from the design sketches that you fought for the whole way through? If so, did they end up on the production car? 
  
I got excited at every stage when I saw an idea from my sketch get closer to reality. Seeing the 1/3 scale model go to full size was awesome, but the best feeling was when the first sheet metal body was completed at our pre-production assembly line. At that point, you know it is going to be a real car.

The biggest element of the design that I fought for from day one was the “sweepspear”, that character line that runs along the shoulder and bounces over the rear wheel. I really believed that it would look great contrasting against a really straight beltline. I also fought to keep the roofline long and low, to give it as much of a coupe-like appearance as possible. I’m very happy with the final appearance of the production car.

4. How much do you sketch on a daily basis at work? (minutes, hours) 

That really varies depending on what stage a project is in. At the beginning, I could be sketching 8 hours a day. But as projects get into 3D, I have to split my time up, working with alias and clay sculptors to create surfaces and with engineers, to make sure our design can really be manufactured. Most of the time we have more than one project going, so I’m always doing some sketching. 


5. Do your find yourself sketching more these days using traditional methods, or are you using new digital techniques? What is your ideal workflow? 

I do mostly thumbnail sketches with ball point pen, and when I get something I like, I trace them into photoshop on my Wacom tablet and clean them up a little. Then I develop the drawing in photoshop until I get to a finished sketch. I think sketching manually is really great, and I do that whenever I’m doing a demo for a group of students. But eventually I always scan them in and do some digital touchups. 


6. What advice can you give to any aspiring designers still looking to have that one cool product hit the market? Or in other words, what does it take to have your work stand out ? 

I would say to be patient and persistent. Cars have one of the longest development lead times, and I think I have been lucky to land on a project that really clicked for me pretty early in my career. It helps to have a solid philosophy to be able to explain your design to the people you work with, while remembering to be open to others’ ideas to bring the product into reality. It usually isn’t a one-person show. 

And as far as making your work stand out, always be looking around at the best work you can find, and keep trying to top it.

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