- Mead was 86 years old.
- He worked on various science fiction films between the 1980's and early 2000's.
- The concept designer's last movie was the 2017 'Blade Runner 2049'.
The man behind some of the most iconic sci-fi movie landscapes and cars, Syd Mead, has passed. His husband Roger Servick confirmed Mead's death at their Pasadena, California residence on December 30. Mead was 86 years old. Most memorable for the 1982 movie Blade Runner, he was renowned for his unique vision of and insight into the technology of the future.
Sydney Jay Mead was born in St Paul, Minnesota, in 1933 in a Baptist household. As a child, Mead was exposed to the world of science fiction through Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers comics. He was a skilled visual artist and drew his way through high school. After three years in the Army, he went to college at what we now call the Art Centre College of Design, Pasadena.
Mead's first job was at the Ford Motor Company. Although futuristic and sleek designs influenced car designs in the 1950s, Mead was perhaps too visionary. He left the company just two years after joining it and switched to illustrating books and catalogues as an industrial designer. His clients included US Steel and machinery manufacturer Allis-Chalmers.
He continued working as an industrial designer through the 1970s. He illustrated and designed for Phillips and later created architectural renderings for various clients such as Intercontinental hotels. During the Japanese Bubble Era, Mead associated with companies like Minolta, Sony, and Honda.
Mead's work in film began in 1975, where his artistic presentations drew the attention of Hollywood producers. Mead debuted in the 1979 flick Star Wars: The Motion Picture. One of Mead's most memorable works, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects and Best Production Design.
Blade Runner allowed Syd Mead to pursue his passion for automotive design. The dystopian future presented in the movie was a far cry from the bright and minimalist version imagined by concept car designers today. This was Mead's world -- the post-apocalyptic city of Los Angeles in 2019. It was divided into an upper and lower city. The former had skyscrapers and 'sky lobbies.' The latter was the perilous lower city, obscured from sunlight by heavy smog and tall buildings at the street level.
Mead worked on a number of films throughout his four-decade-long career in Hollywood. He was the concept artist for the original TRON in 1984. This went on through the 80s and 90s, and then he worked on the 2000 movie Mission to Mars. Mead's most recent feature films are Tomorrowland (2015) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017).
Syd Mead had announced his retirement just a few months ago in 2019. He had been suffering from lymphoma for the last three years. Complications from the cancer caused his death on Monday. Sci-fi fans and several celebrities took to social media to pay their tributes. This February, the Art Directors Guild will posthumously bestow Mead with the William Cameron Menzies Award for his work.
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