H-Point: The Fundamentals of Car Design & Packaging

The 2nd edition is completely revised with an additional 68 pages of indispensable material.

Currently used as the educational handout for the transportation design students at Art Center as well as institutions around the world, H-Point is now available to aspiring car creators everywhere, clearly organizing the packaging standards that apply to car and truck design; along with insightful graphic explanations, this book demystifies the automotive design process and allows designers access to illustrious careers’ worth of knowledge.

About the Authors:

Stuart Macey's career in the automotive industry has spanned three decades, designing cars and trucks for over thirty brands, in five countries. It began in 1979 with Pressed Steel Fisher, the body division of British Leyland. He moved overseas in 1981 as the British car industry slid into a rapid decline, working in Germany as a body engineer on contract for Daimler-Benz and Audi, then moved to Detroit, working for Chevrolet. Returning to Europe in 1983, Stuart worked for International Automotive Design, consulting with numerous clients such as Porsche, Volvo, Honda, Renault, Kia, Opel, Mazda, Ford, Daf trucks and Freight Rover. The experience gained from working in studios across Europe as both designer and engineer, was priceless, helping him to understand that although every brand has its own perspective on design and the process, the basic principles are the same everywhere. In 1991 he returned to the US to work with the Chrysler Design Office in Auburn Hills and their Pacifica Advanced Design Center in California, until it closed in 2008. In 2002, Art Center College of Design invited Stuart to develop the syllabus for their new vehicle architecture class. He currently teaches at Art Center part time, works as a studio engineer for a major auto manufacturer in Southern California and is Principal of Curb Industries LLC.

Geoff Wardle initially studied vehicle engineering at Hatfield Polytechnic in England and followed that up with a degree in Transportation Design at the Royal College of Art, London, graduating in 1977. He worked as a designer at British Leyland, Chrysler, Peugeot, Saab, Tatra, Ford of Australia and TVS motors. In 1993, Geoff was invited to become the Chair of Transportation Design at the Swiss campus of Art Center (Europe), before moving to their Pasadena campus in California, where he is now Executive Director of the Graduate Transportation Design program. Geoff believes that in any successful design team, a variety of designers and studio engineers who contribute different skills or viewpoints to a program are needed. There is no doubt that his combination of engineering and design has set him in good stead during his design career, allowing him to push really hard for technical solutions, enabling some of his design proposals to be successfully executed. He and Stuart taught the Vehicle Architecture class together for several years and the notes they developed have been compiled for this book.