Concept design

A concept designer (also known as "visual futurist" or "concept artist") is a designer who designs products that are not intended for immediate realization. In fact, most of them never come to a realization. If they are realized, it often happens many (even decades or hundreds of) years after the author's death and they often differ from the original concept design, especially when it comes to details. Some good examples of concept design (and of concept architecture as well - architecture is just another design field) are part of the Venus project, founded and led by Jacque Fresco.

Another good example is the Star Trek project. Impressive work of various concept designers (amongst others, of course) over decades has been resulting not only in extremely popular films and the palette of television serials but in a complete "alternative future world". Some, if not most of the concepts, developed for the project, including spaceship drives etc. will probably see the light of day in the future, since the authors and designers, besides using their pure imagination, borrowed ideas from serious science (mostly physics) - and were very careful to avoid situations that would be against the known laws of physics (as the true science fiction should be). Besides that. the task of a concept designer might also include designing of completely fictional characters or objects - especially for a fantasy film or a computer game project.

Other great, though significantly older examples of concept design include numerous projects by the legendary Leonardo Da Vinci (the Aerial Screw flying machine, the Paddle Boat, Scythed Chariots...)

To be a successful concept designer one must be broadly versed in science and technology on one side plus one needs an impressive artistic talent in order to produce quality and aesthetically pleasing sketches, quality photo-realistic illustrations and even animations, on the other. Many of today's concept designers use a 3D computer graphics software as a powerful creative tool in addition to their natural talent to draw and paint, in order to achieve the extreme photorealism. The ideal educational background to become a concept designer would be a degree in architecture or industrial design. Other educational programs tend to be either too artistic/humanistic or too technical for the purpose. A more than average talent not only for realistic drawing and painting but also to invent new, original spacial forms, can be crucial and the right ability to constrain the own imagination inside the limits of the possible, without becoming conservative, is a must.

Concept designers work mainly for the entertainment industry (films, comics, games...), mostly on the subjects of science fiction and fantasy. They design everything, from hand held weapons to costumes to furniture to spaceships to architecture (even whole cities) to impressive background environments. They often cooperate with scientists and engineers, specializing in diverse fields. When participating in a serious science fiction project, it is often crucial not only to take care of the visual aspect of a product but also on its inner workings and principles. For example, a scene, taking place on a planet with four moons and without atmosphere, thousands of light-years away, is different from our everyday experiences, and the job of a concept designer is to join his/her own imagination and the scientific + technical knowledge and try to predict, what it would be like. You can not just put the moons randomly all over the sky, you have to know a little bit of astronomy to place them correctly. You can not travel faster than light, so you have to find a possible way to get around that technical problem (for example by creating a sub-space bubble...). How would you steer a futuristic car, running at over 500 km/h and levitating on an air mattress, a few centimetres over a steel road surface? You obviously can not do it by a conventional steering mechanism, so you have to think of something that would be convincing. It would be still a sort of a close guess, but it must be at least physically possible. Science fiction should not contain elements that are contrary to known scientific laws, so a person is needed with lot of imagination but also with broad technical and scientific, basic (i.e. not necessarily expert) knowledge. That's where the profession of concept designer fits in perfectly.

Besides the entertainment industry there are concept designers working for various, serious scientific and research institutions, (like NASA etc.), in other industries (automotive, aircraft, military) and in architectural and design studios.

Concept designer, specialized in architecture and urban development is also known as a concept architect (again, it is very important not to confuse it with conceptual architect(ure), because the two expressions are not only different but also contradictory!)

Concept design is mostly resulting in visual arts (images, animations, special FX, virtual CG...). The 19th century writer Jules Verne and his various concepts (submarine, rocket etc.) might be considered a good exception that proves the rule. They firstly emerged in their literary form, but had been so seriously detailed, imagined and described by the author, that some basic principles were used when building first real submarine and sending the first man to the Moon.

It is a common misconception, by common people as well as "ordinary" designers and architect, to treat concept design and concept architecture products as less valuable or serious, because they are sort of "fantasy" and are not "realized" as final products. A good architecture is a good architecture, regardless of whether it is standing in the centre of London and is made out of steel and concrete or exists only in the form of a detailed project and a 3D computer model. It is obvious that the process of "realization" can not make it any better in architectural sense (it only gets worse, once the masons take it into their hands). The same is with any other design field.

Important thing to remember is also, that a serious concept project (as a result of work of a concept designer) is sufficient to protect the concept (idea) and generate the authors' rights (at least it should be...).

Some good examples of concept design (in these cases really of concept architecture), that were realized in "their" time: