Darren Mckeage is the Vice President of Design and a Co-Founder of Motive Industries. Darren holds a Masters with Distinction in Automotive Design from Coventry University in the UK and Bachelor of Design Degree from the Alberta College of Art and Design. Darren is a master of his craft and he is the visionary behind Motive's designs.Within Darren's extensive background, he has designed many notable vehicles from scratch ranging from SUV's, three wheelers, micro cars and electric vehicles. Some of these include the Motive Bio-composite car, Motive Bison Pickup, Myers Motors Duo, K2 Capra SUV and SoLo three-wheeled motorcycle. Darren has also been responsible for the re-design of many existing vehicles, including the Epic Torq and Zap Alias. He has received awards and recognition for his designs and design techniques and has also had the privilege of writing for various magazines reviewing the design attributes of upcoming vehicles.
Darren works closely with his clients ensuring the design brief for the particular project is clear and meets the requirements. Having 5 years of experience working with the Motive engineering and CAD team, he is able to create feasible designs with manufacturability always in mind. Theme boards are developed to define the character of the vehicle or product and from that numerous sketches are worked through to continuously develop the design.
The next phases of the project involves giving form and packaging to the ideas and sketches. Working side by side his engineering team he's able to work out the packaging for various required components, occupants and features. Also working mostly in Photoshop, Darren is able to create realistic renders in order to visually communicate what the final product can be. Often times at this point physical clay models can be worked with as well to help understand the forms.
Once a client is happy with the general design direction Darren begins working with 3D CAD modeling. Utilizing Alias Autostudio Tools software he begins building the surfaces and develops a 3D model to better understand the forms. This is where the project really comes to life. The final design starts to take shape and realistic CAD renders or physical scale prototypes can be built to analyse the design before a final sign off can be done. At this point engineering really steps in to help develop everything from material thickness to part breakup and component integration.
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2005
Graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design from the Visual communications Design course.
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2006
An article was written in the first issue of Enclave magazine about my goal to become a car designer
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2007
3rd place in the Designer Techniques car design competition for the amphibious SUV coupe called the 'Thresher'.
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2006-2007
Written automotive design reviews in a department called 'Diffusing Design' and wrote review on the Jaguar XF concept in Elemente magazine. -2006/2007- www.elementemag.com
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2007-2008
Completed the Automotive Design Masters Course with Distinction at Coventry University in the UK
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2008
Designer of the Motive Switch to be entered into the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE. Voted #7 to win out of over 100 entries by Popular Mechanics.
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2009
Zap Alias Prototpe voted 'Best Looking Vehicle' in the X-Prize Competition
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2011
Featured designer in design sketching book 'Learning Curves'. You can preview and order the book here: www.designsketching.com