When I first wrote about futurist, concept artist and industrial designer extraordinaire Syd Mead back in November of 2005, I expressed my disappointment with the lack of a gallery on his official site. Unfortunately, that hasn’t changed.
In the intervening year and a half, the official site has changed little, except to add an annoyingly slow Flash introduction; and still, to my utter disbelief, offers no real gallery of Syd Mead’s terrific art, and therefore provides no reason why someone should care about who Syd Mead is, or why they should be on the site unless they already know who Syd mead is. (What are they thinking?)
The terrific books that have been published over the years as collections of his work are unfortunately out of print, and the official site says there are no plans to republish any of them (making their lack of an online gallery even more inexplicable). You may be able to find some of them used if you search Amazon or eBay.
The Bookstore on the site, though it no longer functions as a store, does contain some small images of work from the books. If you click on any of the book titles, it comes up in a little pop-up window. The rest of the site has some scattered small images from Christmas cards and snowboards, but offers no real opportunity to view his paintings in a meaningful way.
Fortunately, there are other resources on the web that I can point you to to give you some idea of how terrific his work is, and give you at least a hint as to his importance in the ranks of influential concept artists and futurist illustrators.
There is a reasonably good gallery on the Gnomon Workshop site, and there are unofficial gallery sites here and here. You can also get an idea from doing a Google image search. You can find an illustrated article on Promotex and an interview on Anime.com.
Mead set the standards for modern futuristic design and influenced two generations of concept artists and designers.
Once you’ve gotten a taste of his groundbreaking visionary art, you may have an idea of why the one significant recent addition to the official site is of interest. A new documentary had become available about the work and influence of Syd Mead, as told in interviews with Mead and a number of the people who worked closely with him on some of his most influential projects. The film is called VISUAL FUTURIST: The Art & Life of Syd Mead and is available through the official site.
Also, the instructional DVDs that were offered by the Gnomon Workshop, where Mead has been an instructor, are still available through both the Syd Mead site and the Gnomon site.
You are right on with the lack of Mead’s art on the net and especially on his own site. He seems to be very business savvy, yet he neglets to make himself more visible on the net.
I guess he sees no reason to do that and relies exclusively on his fame and extensive network of contacts. A pity for the new generation of designers/artist’s as his work is among the best of the best.
It’s really a shame to see Mead’s lack of interest in using the internet to promote his work. It’s so important to reach the new demographic out there.
It’s particularly disappointing that the books aren’t being kept in print, some of them are just amazing.
I also have to wonder why they don’t offer prints of posters of his images. I’m fortunate to have a copy of a poster size book called “Syd Mead: Techno Fantasy Art” that I think was issued in the 70’s, and his work looks great printed at a large scale.