Lines and Colors art blog

Syd Mead Blade Runner concept art

Syd Mead Bladerunner concept art
Fans of the reality-bending fiction of Philip K. Dick, among whom I count myself, generally acknowledge the the best film made from his source material is Ridley Scott’s superb 1982 “future noir” thriller, Blade Runner.

One of the best features of that film was the art direction, cinematography and overall look and feel, much of which was due to designs by the brilliant visual futurist and concept artist, Syd Mead.

As part of a series of articles under the heading of Fragments of a hologram rose: Re-seeing Blade Runner, Chris Rogers takes a look at some of Mead’s concept art. The article is accompanied by a gallery of images.


Comments

6 responses to “Syd Mead Blade Runner concept art”

  1. Syd Mead has long been my favorite sci-fi concept artist. His work is amazing.

  2. The concept work for B.R. is awesome. If anyone is interested, if you get a recent DvD copy of Blade Runner there is a feature on the concept art/production of the film and to it is as compelling a watch as the movie itself. General cost of the DvD I bought is around 5$ US so even if you have an old copy, perhaps a VHS one 🙂 it is worth the few dollars to pick up a copy with the bonus materials imo.

    Many of the older movies on DvD like the original Conan the Barbarian have production featurettes included with all kinds of cool concept art. I have come out with some good stuff from a dive in the 5$ bin at a bigbox store I will not name!

    Thx for post I am going to visit the Chris Roger’s article now.

    1. Good to know. Thanks, Mark.

  3. I saw Syd’s name in the credits of the new film Elysium, and the visual design is indeed one of the main highlights of the film. One of many films he’s improved.

  4. Apparently still no web source that collects his work?

    I’ll bet there is tons we have not seen, and may never see.

    1. Unfortunately, when I last searched, I found little in the way of resources for Mead’s work on the web. I should check around again, though, it’s been a while. I think some of the books are still available.