interior designer john norman talks about the development, expectations, and influences of the 2015 acura NSX
every since high school, john norman was determined to be a car designer for the rest of his life. with that spirit, he works at acura and heads the interior layout of the second generation supercar hybrid ’NSX’, which was introduced at the 2015 north american international auto show. he graduate from college for creative studies in detroit and has worked on many luxury cars for acura. with the japanese mid engined classic, john and michelle christensen had to find a balance between the iconic race car persona and the established luxury needs that the automotive brand is known for. designboom caught up with him to discuss his background, inspirations and the challenges in designing the ’NSX’ model.
design boom (DB): what originally made you want to become a designer?
john norman (JN): as a child i thought cars were incredibly cool. i loved the way they looked, how they felt and even how they smelled. i also loved to draw and made elaborate models of helicopters and boats of my own design out of legos. my parents never bought me the fancy lego kits they have today! i started drawing cars for fun around the sixth grade. sketching regular cars was boring so i started to draw my own designs. that was more fun. i didn’t know car design was a potential career until i was in high school and automobile magazine ran an article about the college for creative studies (CCS) in detroit. it included photos of car design sketches and models. i was blown away and decided right then that car design was what i wanted to do with my life.
DB: who / what has been the biggest influence on your work to date?
JN: the first influence is other car designers that came before me. there has been so much great car design done over the last 100 years. we are all in their debt. old ferrari’s are very pretty. late 20’s and 30’s american cars are so beautiful and grand. a second influence would be movie design. the vehicle designs in star wars were a tremendous influence on me. watching those movies is when i first started to become aware that the world could be designed. the final influence would be nature and animals. what i do as a designer is only a crude imitation of the exquisite beauty of plants and animals found in the world. in particular i love sea life. the monterey bay aquarium is one of my favorite places in the world. the shapes, colors, patterns and extraordinary appearance of sea animals are almost unbelievable. i’ve spent hours there wandering around in wonder and amazement.
DB: what was your first car and what was your dream car when growing up?
JN: my first real car was a 1983 volkswagen scirocco. it was black on black with a five speed manual and i just loved it. i bought it for $800 with money i made working at the grocery store in the summer. it was always breaking and i loved working on it with a good friend. i would drive it from boston to detroit a few times a year during college. eventually the brutal detroit winters took their toll and it started looking rough. so I took off the bumpers and convinced some of my classmates at CCS to help me “paint” the car. we took leftover car paint we had from model making and went out behind the school at night to paint the car. the idea was that i would drive by and my classmates would throw paint on the car creating a bootleg jackson pollack effect. we were making a terrible mess when the cops showed up. they didn’t care about the street vandalism but instead advised we acquire firearms for our own personal safety. the car looked punk rock when it was finished and drew very different reactions. the normal people hated it, the skate punk kids thought it was rad!
Source: http://www.designboom.com/technology/interior-designer-john-norman-acura-nsx-05-12-2015/
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