Goodwood Festival of Speed: The Greatest (Motor)Show on Earth

It's the show that offers the lot – motor racing, new model reveals, celebrity drivers and guests, stunts and the Red Arrows. Goodwood Festival of Speed is everything modern motor shows aren't... because it's actually a show.

If like me, you share more than a passing interest in cars, particularly fast ones, you'll either have already have visited this iconic event or it's written in engine oil on your automotive bucket list.

This year's show was as popular as ever and visitors flocked to the live action around the garages to sample the sound and smell of F1 and supercar models of present day and yesteryear. It's a spine-tingling experience that the digital world is a long way from effectively simulating. I hope this event keeps the memories alive long after the petrol engine is legislated off our roads.

I wanted to capture as much of the passion and action of the event this year so my Twitter, Vine and Instagram feeds were working overtime. Audi builds the largest stand by far, but Goodwood isn't all about scale, it's about intimacy and a genuine connection between fans and brands. Nissan won the day for me, revealing their incredible Concept 2020 supercar, the stunning IDx Nismo and IDx Freeflow design studies, Nismo GTRs (one driven up the hill by Sir Chris Hoy, who also made a guest appearance on the stand), a raft of new models and Oculus Rift VR simulations. All this on a relatively small stand. No Audi, bigger is not better.

To illustrate the popularity of Nissan's Concept 2020, my Vine video has received 1100+ Likes and 500+ reVines. With no social replies to this from official #FoS and @Nissan channels, an opportunity has been missed to be part of the conversation.

The only disappointment for me this year (apart from my Dad being unable to attend as my regular Goodwood track buddy) was the overhyped promise of social channel interaction – otherwise known as Twitter and Instagram coverage. As with previous years, this remained largely one-sided – with the official #FoS channels being particularly guilty of blatant 'broadcast' with very little engagement (apart from conversations with the manufacturers).

Notable social highlights were a Twitter acknowledgement from @MercedesBenzUK for this shot...

...and a regram by @McLaren for my photo of the M7C (currently on over 3000 likes).

This is an amazing show, year after year. Long may it continue, perhaps with the virtual social experience to match the physical extravaganza next year.

My full photo stream is available on Instagram, but here are my highlights. 

The Battle for the Dashboard

As the pace of technological innovation within the automotive sector continues to  increase, more and more of the analogue interior is becoming the new digital frontier. Apple hopes CarPlay will provide a common visual language to streamline the process.

Last week, the focus was all on Apple's WWDC keynote announcements in San Francisco. They delivered a wide range of software solutions, arming iOS developers with the next generation of digital tools and laying the groundwork for a raft of exciting hardware products in the run up to the holiday season.

Headlines were grabbed by enhanced Photos, audio Messages, smart Keyboards, Family Sharing, iCloud Drive, HealthKit, HomeKit and an entirely new programming language – Swift.

At WWDC 2013, Apple announced its intention to bring iOS to the car, on more than just your phone screen and earlier this year the first serious brand partners were revealed...

I have worked with the automotive industry for nearly 15 years and had much more than a passing interest in cars my whole life. However, I’ve never been a big fan of motoring classics unless influencing contemporary curves, so technological developments inside the car offer a fascinating design and development challenge. How do we bring the screen experience from our pockets to the the dashboard?

On the surface, this would seem a relatively simple step for Apple. iOS7 and iOS8 offer a flat graphic simplicity that lends itself to quick actions accessed at a glance, or effective voice commands for key features. Just the kind of interaction you want when 99% of your attention should be on the road ahead.

Apple’s hardware always follows a beautiful, streamlined aesthetic, free from unnecessary adornments and flourishes. Thanks to last year’s iOS7 overhaul, the software now compliments this perfectly.

The automotive market is a very different animal. Whilst brands may retain a level of consistency and share common components (ie VW Group or GM), they all assume different characters.

Consistency of digital brand: BMW UI from key to smartphone to smartwatch.

The BMW family screen UI is probably the best example of a diverse range, all reaching for the best on-screen graphics whilst adopting wildly different personalities. The MINI colour palette, iconography and graphics take on a cheeky, playful persona. Rolls Royce provides the polar opposite with layered glass-like panels to match the physical buttons surrounding the main screen. BMW’s conventional range uses a subtle colour palette to identify key functions (Audio, Sat Nav, Phone, etc) and gentle layering of content, with occasional light flares and reflective buttons. The new ‘i’ EV range range takes this a step further with a more adventurous palette and deeper layering for something that wouldn’t look out of place on the bridge of the USS Enterprise... but in a good way.

Graphic vs skeuomorphic, flat vs layered, corporate fonts, colour palettes and screen ratios. These are all graphic elements to take into consideration and there is undoubtedly a fine creative balancing act involved to combine existing branding and features with Apple’s CarPlay interface.

I’ve dwelt on the potential pitfalls but many automotive manufacturers are still offering drivers a pretty poor on-screen experience. Although the latest Land Rover Discovery Vision concept has a full set of screens displaying content that looks as if it could have emerged from Apple’s own creative studio, Tesla offers a comparatively poor graphic interface within the largest digital real estate on the market. The Model S UI is the perfect candidate for a full CarPlay-compatible makeover – especially as Tesla is a shoe-in for Apple acquisition and Elon Musk being Steve Jobs’ true successor-in-waiting.

I digress. Currently, CarPlay is only supporting 3rd party audio apps such as Beats (naturally) and Spotify music streaming services. Future app integration will build on this, with huge potential for voice commands and audio interaction. The focus will always remain on products that don’t distract the driver and offer the continuation of relevant services from phone to car. There’s little point offering everything in the car, in much the same way the compass app is pretty pointless on a smart TV.

Where CarPlay comes into its own is the familiarity through shared interfaces and content. The continuation of basic actions is essential, such as track syncing if started outside the car, then continued once driving. Also, the ability to share mapping data is genuinely useful (this wouldn't have been an option with Apple Maps 1.0). Navigate to a location in your car, then park and seamlessly continue on foot – that’s useful.

So what does the future hold for CarPlay? Apps are dead, right? No, this isn’t about using the internet in your car to replace apps.

Consider the following...

• Mapping data to provide info regarding payment services for parking, admission or valeting
• PassBook electronic tickets issued upon payment to display in-dash and on phone
• Biometric integration – Apple's Health app linked to wearable tech to monitor heart rate and consciousness levels for safety at the wheel
• HUD and gesture recognition – there’s a thought for future generations of iPhone interaction.

CarPlay offers automotive manufacturers the opportunity to streamline their UI and make consumers‘ lives simpler through familiarity. Apple has a chance to lock down another sector into the world of iOS. It’s not a bad place to be.

A version of this article originally appeared in iCreate issue 134

2013: Future Fiction

What's new for design, technology and publishing in 2013? A valid question but why not resolve to make a difference, rather than predict what everyone else will do.

It's all too easy to find yourself caught up in the present, like a fly in a web, albeit a digital one in this case. Attending to clients with immediate requirements and never allowing yourself time to look further ahead than lunch or the next meeting can lead to a very blinkered approach to work and life.

I am in the fortunate position where my job specifically requires me to daydream, allowing my imagination to wander, looking beyond the present and jumping headlong into the future.

I have always loved the concept of time travel but it's not the vision of future civilisations or making history tangible that intrigues me, I'm fascinated by the impact of our actions and the rebuttal of inevitability. I don't believe in fate and I have never subscribed to the theory that our lives are in any way shape or form planned for us. If they were, why even bother to climb from our beds in the morning? Why take a different route to work? Why try to shape a business or industry for the better when the end result is written in stone.

Stephen King explored the obdurate past in his novel '11.22.63', stubbornly trying to reassemble itself into a network of intersecting lines that results in the same conclusion, the same historic path, the same planned inevitability. The challenge lies in breaking these strands to change the course of history.

OK, as the option to change the past isn't currently available to us, let's focus on the future as this lies in the hands of individuals prepared to write the history books and create 'Future Fiction'. You don't have to be an author, but someone with a passion to create a narrative for history, rather than slavishly follow focus groups or base all resources on developing multiple-choice products. In order to create and shape demand, you need to define the criteria and the product yourself.

Apple's 'Think Different' slogan is as powerful today as it was when this inspirational ad aired in 1997.

From Albert Einstein to Martin Luther King, Jim Henson to Steve Jobs himself, these were individuals with strong personalities and conviction, carving out deep impressions in the very fabric of history. 

The author Philip K Dick is a great example of a 'fictional innovator' – he gave us incredible glimpses of the future with classics such as Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report. A recent comment on Twitter referred to Minority Report as pure fiction that should be treated as such. Well, we may not be exploiting precogs, but we're certainly using Tom Cruise's gestural interface. Several years ago Brandwidth worked on some stunning gestural interaction and 3D plasma screen projects for Toyota, so we've been used to keeping in line with fiction in order to keep clients ahead in the 'real world'.

2013 offers us more tools than ever before to bring the future into focus. Watch out for wearable technology and a return of gestural interfaces, powered by great hardware such as Leap and Microsoft's Kinect. When scale is important, we'll move beyond touchscreens and bring digital content into our physical environment. Don't worry, that doesn't make your smartphone and tablet obsolete, just open your minds to TVs, shop windows and car interiors that need you to wave your arms around.

This is an exciting time to make a digital difference in a physical world. Don't settle for today, when tomorrow has yet to be shaped. Get out there and write the future, don't sit back and read it.

The ones that got away

​I’ve never been one to rave over classic cars. I appreciate the significance of the E-Type, Ferrari Dino and Aston Martin DB5, but I’d never want to own one. I have always loved new cars so I tend to relate more to those launched during my lifetime – the modern classics if you will.

So which cars fall into this category for me? Well, here follows a short list...

Plymouth Prowler

A modern take on the hotrods of yesteryear, this purple rocket (for most were that colour) had enough character to make up for its V6 engine where a noisy V8 should have sat. This engine choice may well have proven to be the car’s achilles heel as it didn’t last long and only 11,000 were produced. I’d still love one now – maybe an electric conversion with a V8 soundtrack would be the ultimate combination.

TVR Sagaris

Poor old TVR. After years of going their own way, developing a unique range of Rover V8 powered thunderous roadsters and coupés with a patchy reliability record, the Backpool-based company turned to their in-house team to produce a high revving 4 litre straight six engine all of their own. This powerplant sat in increasingly outrageous bodystyles, culminating in the Sagaris. Covered in swoops and vents, with two enormous side exit exhausts, this super lightweight Batmobile for the people was capable of 0-60 in under 4 seconds, with a roar that could strip pebble dash from a whole row of houses.

I began by saying poor TVR. What seemed a successful business, ripe for takeover by a major player was in fact snapped up in 2004 by Russia’s youngest millionaire Nikolay Smolenski. Since then, the company has taken a downward spiral with production being moved to Russia then ceasing.

On a positive note, a revised Sagaris 2 was wheeled out for a launch event  last July following the death of TVR founder Trevor Wilkinson – although no production will be scheduled until enough interest has been registered.

Renault Avantime

The French car industry is renowned for its ability to laugh in the face of convention, even when this means producing cars that nobody wants – take the Peugeot 1006 and Citroën Pluriel as examples, a dumpy city car with slow electric doors and a convertible with nowhere to put the roof.

Add to this list the Renault Avantime – a luxury sports coupé MPV. Confused? The designers certainly were. Despite (or maybe in spite of) the Avantime’s multiple personalities, I can’t help but love this car. It really was the forerunner of all the ‘shake that ass’ Renaults, from the Megane to the Vel Satis.

The full-length sunroof, pillar-less side windows and huge cantilever doors all add up to one of Renault’s most innovative vehicles to date, with an incredible sense of space inside created by the vast glass areas. As the two doors were so large, the Avantime remained an incredibly practical option – plenty of legroom for 5 plus an enormous boot means this still makes a sensible second-hand bargain. That’s if you can find one as Renault only sold about 8,000, but I hope that doesn’t put the French off making crazy cars – there will always be a market for them, even if it’s only me that wants to buy them.

Fiat Coupé

Ah, Mr. Bangle, we’ve been expecting you. The creative innovator behind the love-it-or-loathe-it (I love it) flame surfaced styling of the current BMW range, Chris Bangle first honed his talents at Opel, then Fiat.

The Fiat Coupé was the design masterpiece that emerged from the Italian giant and stood out as a example of automotive art in a sea of bland 1990s metal. From the bold slashes above each wheel arch, the bubble cover headlamps, Ferrari-style inset rear lights, hinged metal fuel filler cap to the body colour swathe of metal across the dashboard, the Fiat Coupé took inspiration from many quarters, yet managed to pull this together into a car that could be launched tomorrow and still appear ahead of its time.

With a 2.0-litre 20v turbo under the bonnet, this car had the show to match the go and stands alone as one of the most characterful Fiats until the launch of the new 500. With Chris Bangle’s February announcement that he was to leave BMW to pursue other design-related projects I shall mourn this loss to the motor industry, even if many others won’t

If I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d still have all four of these cars in my garage. They might break down every other week – but they would sit at the heart of my collection.