Classiq Designer Series—Featuring Bill Robinson
Before there were dedicated schools for automobile design people who wished to be an automotive stylist worked at Industrial Design Studio. Bill Robinson is among those that pioneered the automotive design industry. From his first experience seeing a Cord to showing off his portfolio straight out of high school, Bill was destined to be an automotive stylist.
Future videos in the series will feature Buck Mook, Elia Russinoff, Frank Pascoe, Vince Geraci, Bill Michalak, Wayne Kady, and Bill Porter.
Video Credits: Julie Hyde-Edwards and Robert Edwards for making the videos possible, Clasiq for producing the series. Sponsored by Farmers Insurance.
Published on Dean’s Garage by permission by Charlie Rubin, Clasiq COO and Founder.
Dean’s Garage, The Future is Back release: January, 2020.
Packard Designer, Bill Robinson
Design Security
The design security is so great that sometimes your friends would be in another studio and they would not allow you into that studio. The only information you can take with you is the design knowledge you have in your head.
Being a Design Teacher
“Designers are difficult people to work with. They all think their designs are great, and their designs should be picked.” But working with students who want to become transportation designers can really be rewarding work
Identity in Automobile Design
The strongest challenge in automotive design is Identity. Early in the 20th century Packard understood that they needed to create consistency in their design. There was a time when even five-year-old kids could spot a Packard on the road.
Bill Robinson Analyzes His Own Design Work
Listen to Bill as he dissects his artwork and discusses his thinking while he was doing these designs.
The Start of Automobile Design
Learn a bit about the start and history of automotive design.
Well, since I worked at design staff for forty years with the best
People at GM. I want to comment on one particular person.
My friend who passed away a number of years ago.
He was one of the best designers and sat still as all the other designers worked on a Cadillac project. Full size renderings on the big boards. Donald Hronek would watch as the air brushes
Ran and the colors flowed on the paper stretched across the twenty or more foot boards. On the last day of the project he got up went to the board and in that day finished what the other designers had worked on for over ten days. His design won and the Cadillac Seville, the last one in about 1990s was
Donald’s’ work. No one could out do him!
All those who knew him worked with him will never forget him!
Nh
Gary: These are really interesting. Bravo
Congrats Bill. Nice videos. Great to hear about Briggs and the early days of your career designing Packards. Your legacy will live on through all of your students.
I had Mr. Robinson (even now that’s the only way I can refer to him) twenty years ago in my sophomore year at CCS and I still remember how kind and giving he was, and what a good teacher he was. It was a pleasure to find these videos.
I had the pleasure of taking Mr. Robinson’s intro transportation class in 2000, second semester of my freshman year at CCS– we had some seriously talented students, and it was always a cringe-worthy moment when he would take a student’s sketch down from the wall and start drawing over it. He was such an incredible font of history and design, and delivered it all with a great sense of humor. I hope he’s still driving his Camaro.