When Harry Bradley died last May, Dean’s Garage reposted a video from Luciano Bove that talked about how Bradley influenced his work as a car designer and educator (Smith, 2023). That video offers a fascinating glimpse into the challenges of becoming a car designer.
Bove’s description of Bradley’s teaching approach at the Art Center College of Design has the quality of a boot camp. In the first day of class, Bradley said, “Remember, in this class you are 25 people. Probably only two or three of you would become real car designers. Then there would probably be four or five that will only do accessories for cars.” As for the rest of the class, Bradley concluded, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
Those are tough words for new students, particularly given the cost of a degree at the Art Center. However, Bove said that after all these years he still thinks about Bradley’s “very drastic approach” when he sketches. That approach included pushing students to excel by giving them a difficult workload and tough critiques.
“At the beginning I really hated it because it was so hard,” Bove said of Bradley’s course. “But then I understood the importance of being honest and being a little bit hard at the beginning to wake you up and make you understand that you are studying in a very particular type of school for a very small niche major” — with few job openings.
Bove went on to a career as a car designer and educator. When he teaches he has a more light-hearted teaching style, but Bove carries on the core of Bradley’s approach.
Also see ‘In 1974 Harry Bradley anticipated the American wagon’s future’
A lot of people have “strong potential but they don’t know” it, Bove says. “The objective of an educator, as I believe, as Harry Bradley also believed. . . is to . . . push you to the limits — even if you are almost cracking down to make sure that you understand who you are and what you really offer.”
Watching this video brought me to do a deeper dive on Bove. He has published a number of e-books on car design, has a YouTube channel and offers online courses. He sounds like a dedicated mentor to aspiring designers — and a fitting legacy to Harry Bradley.
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RE:SOURCES
- Bove, Luciano; 2023. “In Memory of Harry Bently Bradley.” YouTube. Posted May 27.
- Smith, Gary; 2023. “A Tribute to Harry Bradley.” Dean’s Garage. Posted May 27.
Art Center was a very real experience. One fellow alumnus referred to it as 4 years of boot camp. One never worked so hard with so little sleep for minimal kind words. It took a thick skin to even survive.
For us in the Industrial Design program (included Trans, Product & Environmental degrees) first day at 9:00 am with Ted Young in. “I believe in 8 hours of sleep. 8 hours a week.” Another was “If you want to hear nice words about your work take it home and show your nother. Here I tell the truth ”
A class was 9:00 am to 4:00 pm and was once a week. Before class started everyone posted their artwork on the wall for everyone to see. Everyone included other students that might wander in during the morning break. The worst crit by the instructor was when the looked at one’s work and moved on to the next student’s without saying anything.
Harry Brafley was a very interesting person. He was not an Art Center grad – Pratt if I remember correctly. He was known for having done some very good work while at GM. He did a very short stint at Chrysler (some unkind stories he had about their leadership) on his way to Mattel.
Harry could draw and pop out views like crazy. Sometimes when he was running behind on artwork he owed the magazines he would finish it in class. He could also be quite irreverent. Likely, despite all the talent, he was not going to truly ascend the corporate Detroit structure.
That sounds pretty intense, so congratulations for getting through it. In a way the Art Center doesn’t sound all that different than my journalism training, which required ridiculously long hours and lots of criticism. That’s why I suspect that I could have dealt with the Art Center’s pressures if I had gone that route, but who knows?
Harry sounds like a no-nonsense kind of man who would tell you what he thought. Given what I’ve read about corporate culture back then, I could see how that might not have been very popular with management. However, I could imagine that lower-level staff may have loved his irreverence.
Harry’s talent was recognized up the ladder. Chuck Jordan wanted to know how Harry was doing at Art Center.
Harry also had a Masters from Stanford. His crutches were part if his Master program – why they are named Bradley-Stanford.
A big part of the Art Center experience was how one’s artwork compared to one’s classmates. One didn’t always need to hear the instructor’s comments to already know the situation. More pointedly, everyone in the room already knew before the first words were spoken. Do that 5 days a week with 5 different classes and it was serious pressure.
In my time it was a 1 in 3 completion rate for the entire school. There was no warm and fuzzy intentions for the school. The focus of the school was to make their graduates ready to be immediately productive after being hired in their chosen field. Philosophical questions of how to save the world were not relevant as that wasn’t part of getting a real job offer.
Harry would use the rubber tip of his crutch as pointer during drawing critiques and on many occasions he’d mar, tear and rip a drawing off the wall with that tip. One time at a class in the old annex building he did just that, and unexpectedly a drawing slid straight down along the wall and disappeared into the gap at the floorboard, never to be seen again! Harry was incredibly intimidating to some but highly supportive to those he believed in and extremely brilliant, and by far my favorite instructor.
The tough-guy instructors are an interesting breed. They seem to assume that fear is the best motivator of high performance. I suppose that’s true to a degree, but my sense is that there is a point of diminishing returns if the instructor shifts too far from honest critique into performative cruelty. I’m retired so have a certain detachment from the career world, but the idea of ripping up someone’s drawing seems over the top. That said, my favorite undergrad professor also did the tough-guy routine.
Harry’s tough-guy facade was informed by his lifetime of physical disability which posed a level of obstacle throughout his career. He wasn’t a cruel teacher for the sake of it; he knew many students would not succeed in the extremely competitive Transportation Design job market and was actually tasked with directing them toward a better fit at the midpoint of the educational process. The intense 4th term student portfolio class review days were heartbreaking days of reckoning for many prospective Transportation Design students who were flatly advised to focus on other design majors.
Alan,
When were you at ACCD? I was there from 1975-1978. 3 semesters on 3rd and the rest at the new campus.
I had Harry for the 1st or second Trans class. Politics between him, Teter and Mac were going on.
Yes, early 90’s.
Who were the Trans instructors then? Was Keith Teter still the department head?
Ronald Hill was department head through 2000. I didn’t know Keith Teter as he departed years before. Strother was occasionally teaching a basic form development course and Auto Design History. Other influential instructors to me were Harry Bradley, Andrew Osborn, Freeman Thomas, and Joe Ferrer.
Did you ever have Doug Halbert? We graduated together.
I was familiar with him but did not have him as a regular instructor. I think he had worked with Andrew Ogden (not Osborn) who was a most influential instructor for me at that time. I believe Halbert has since passed away.