Harald Belker, Concept Design
www.HaraldBelker.com

At 10 years old, I played tennis, basketball, soccer, didn’t speak a word of English and never even considered spending a moment to draw a picture. In my late teens, I wondered if I had the talent to become a professional tennis player. That thought completely dominated my time. It was my first big dream.

The thought of drawing for a living never even crossed my mind. At the age of 22, I packed my bags and headed to Georgia on a tennis scholarship. I played tennis a minimum of four hours every day. In typical German fashion, I selected engineering as my major. By default, my minor was English immersion and I tried my best not to complement my German accent with a southern drawl.

In my senior year, I received a car magazine from a friend. There were four automotive design schools featured in it and one caught my eye. It was called Art Center College of Design and its most attractive characteristic was that it was located in Southern California. I picked up a pen, drew a few pictures and sent off the application.

We all have days in our lives that we will never forget because something made an immortal impression. My first day at ACCD struck like a bolt of lightning. It launched the beginning of a new obsession. I retired my tennis racket and immersed my thoughts into a new dream, designing. I spent my next four years honing my newfound talent and sharing this passion with a class that later turned out to be amazingly special.

After graduating with honors, my first job out of ACCD was to be a designer at Porsche in Stuttgart, Germany. I thought this was a phenomenal opportunity, until I realized my heart belonged to Los Angeles. I found another great opportunity at the Advanced Design Studio for Mercedes-Benz in Orange County. I rushed to fulfill the natural path towards my dream. Unfortunately, it was clouded by the startling truth of the business world: corporate decisions rule design.

If I wanted to make a difference in the world of design, I believed I needed to be independent and leave the stable design job that long ago would have been the pinnacle of my achievement. I thought long and hard about the stark reality of the freelance design world. I decided to dream bigger and take that jump.

Lucky for me, lightning struck again. A colleague from ACCD called with an opportunity to design a vehicle for a small movie at Warner Bros. Turns out that movie was “Batman & Robin” and eight “Bat” vehicles later, I had a new career.

Each movie I work on makes a special mark in my design development. My most gratifying project was the movie “Minority Report” which featured a handful of vehicles that were set in the future. I was given the rare opportunity to design and realize a truly futuristic way of transportation. It was definitely a chance of a lifetime.

Since 1995 I have designed a series of electric bikes for Lee Iaccoca, consulted companies like Porsche Style in Huntington Beach and Nissan Design International; and I have had the good fortune to design vehicles and props for numerous motion pictures, including “Batman & Robin,” “Armageddon,” “Deep Blue Sea,” “Inspector Gadget,” “Battlefield Earth,” “Spider-Man,” “Minority Report,” “XXX,” “The Cat in the Hat” and currently “Superman.”

So today, as I reflect upon my winding path to becoming a designer, I’m amused by the things that helped me along the way: dreaming big, accepting all of life’s twists, always maintaining a level of fun, and finally, waiting for lightning to strike. Oh, and I must not leave out innovation, one of the most important drivers of design. This book is a compilation of design work from a group of innovators and re-innovators. I am thankful to be a part of it.