Ford Dashboard Project
DART 412: Portfolio Design & Professional Practices
Turning Personal Interests into Professional Quality Work
75 Years & 14 generations of distinctly unique F-Series pickup truck dashboards. Even though they are oftentimes poorly executed, in-vehicle infotainment systems are my favorite type of user experience. An interest in learning more about the history of this interface & a passion to more deeply understand the move away from physical buttons & towards digital iterations, lead me to this longitudinal case study. There is no better subject than the best-selling vehicle in the United States for the last 45 years. In honor of Ford launching an all electric model, Ford F-150 Lightning, these dashboards were digitally recreated.
Who
Austin
What
Semester-long Project
When
Spring 2022
Why
Creative Independance
How
Adobe Illustrator
Overview
Since childhood, I have been infatuated by cars, oftentimes sketching potential logos & car concepts for my own imaginary company. This passion for the automotive industry has grown significantly in recent years as electric vehicles begin to see an increase in popularity & mainstream adoption within the United States. Considering the importance of personal transportation in the lives of many Americans & current industry trends to incorporate more advanced technology, designing a discoverable & understandable in-vehicle user experience is essential to the future of cars.
Challenge
DART 412 served as the capstone course for my certificate in digital art. The focus of this project is to review previous designs, digitally recreate dashboards, & better understand the differences between the 14 generations of F-Series pickups. Through utilizing reference imagery & archival websites, each of these dashboards were accurately recreated in Adobe Illustrator. This time intensive process was extremely rewarding as it allowed me to further explore my interest in user experience design & while also nourishing my abilities in the Adobe Creative Suite.
Design Process
Takeaways
In order to design safe, enjoyable, & seemingly “invisible” experiences, I believe that physical controls should be a feature of all vehicles. While touchscreens are exceptional for iterating designs, there is no question that they are more difficult to use. With an increasing amount of new vehicles incorporating touchscreens into the driving experience, I believe that there is also an increase in distracted driving & greater safety risk to everyone on the road.
Click here to view the project website.