How long have you been into designing and art? I began when I was young. Real young! You see, before I started to draw, my father asked me for his opinion where we should cut the cowl of our 1970 Ariens Arrow snowmobile. That snowmobile did not have a real vent on the cowl. It was common of its day of the 60s snowmobiles have no vents. Because of this, the engine overheated often. I told my father to put it between the headlights since it featured like a face on the cowl. That began my interest in designing. My first design was in 1972 during summer and it was 3 snowmobiles plus a theme park I designed. It was so since that year my father was buying another snowmobile to replace the old 69 Fox Trac Special snowmobile with 1973 Arctic Cat Panther, and for us, 1973 Kitty Cat snowmobile. I was 9 years old at the time. The theme park design was because of family trip to Disney World. First of 5 trips during the 70s. I struck with art and design ever since!
When was your most successful design/art take place and for what/who? My most successful was the 1620 Burnet Ave Building. It houses a video and photography studio. I designed the exterior of the building to stand out to the drivers along the highway going into the city. It was a back door connection to get this project. It has grey and blue trim to stand out to attract customers.
My other successful project was more of design research but this company designed based on my response. It is a snowmobile company called Arctic Cat. I would say more of indirect approch since I was researching for a design and people told me about what they want and most mentioned Arctic Cat. They wanted the Z name return and the hammerhead cowl design so I contacted them in 1985. Thus, A-Cat designed and brought out slowly with the Z graphics on their WildCat model in late 80s, then introduced the short lived Prowler model. The Prowler had the hammerhead cowl design that brought much of the 90s basic design on rest of the line-up. The Z name returned in the 90s. The Z name was a racing model during the mid-70s and the hammerhead was based on the leaf suspension Sno-Pro Racing machines of 1976 and 77.
What type of designs is your favorite? Depends on what you are asking. For home, I like mid-century modernism, Googie designs. For snowmobiles, I like many designs. No favorites. For cars, again, many of them, however, I like retro-modernism such as the New Beetle, Mustang, the upcoming Camero and Challenger (seen them in person after I was one of many designers complained about the new Dodge Chargers with FOUR doors!?) Dodge heard that and GM took note too so again, indirect influenced them to come out with those models. Boats, they all look alike, don't they? RVs, Airstream. For ATCs/ATVs, Arctic Cat!!! Ha. I noticed with my design, I am usually ahead of my time and sort of a design prophect. Ha.
~RR
Roadrunner is also a writer, he's in the middle of writing a book also..Why do you think I mentioned about God here or there in this website and the book name is "Cory's Guide: How to Find Your Mate the Lord's Way."
