Now that the Detroit Auto Show occupies a September date from 2022 onward, it coincides with the annual Detroit Month of Design celebration. The festival features exhibitions, studio tours, talks and workshops that highlights Detroit’s UNESCO City of Design status.
The College for Creative Studies (CCS) staged Mobility, Art & Design at the Valade Family Gallery featuring work from current students and recent graduates. The exhibition was mainly transportation design focused although there was representation from other departments fashion, interaction and product design. The scope of transportation projects ranged from advanced personal mobility designs for ZOOX to commercial truck concepts for Kenworth. The ZOOX projects were interesting as they combined a transportation designer and color+materials designer to work together on a proposal. Each of the presentation boards are information dense and not the easiest to comprehend on a small screen, but it’s good to see a wide variety of ideas and styles presented.
Viewing student exhibitions like this is always a nostalgic trip back to my own transportation design school days. Being a product of the analog representation days, I do miss seeing walls of gesture sketches and shiny marker renderings. Good to still see pen sketches presented alongside the many photoshop images and 3d renders. It’s especially important with the spread of AI that design remain a human endeavor for the benefit of humans.





























































