AYALA MUSEUM DESIGNTALKS X WINI CAMACHO

With all the hooplah from DOT's new tourism ~~campaign~~ meme, it's hard not to be proud of your country and her children. It may be controversial and not-so-original, but you can't deny that its simplicity carries its realness. There is nothing more golden that the fact that it's more fun in the Philippines... Ask Kobe! LOL

I was telling my girl Cess on our way to Ayala Museum that the campaign was not so much about the tourist spots as it was about the citizens in it. See how one simple, borderline boring slogan became an interactive, collaborative and communal sensation... Whether we hated it or loved it, our people made it work.

Our people make our country fun.

One such Filipino is Winifredo Camacho, lead designer at Mercedes-Benz, and the dude responsible for the new generation E-Class.

Do you have any idea how bad-ass that job description is? LEAD DESIGNER FOR MERCEDES-BENZ... And yet he is one of the coolest cats in the industry of design. Very low-key and humble, despite the fact that he has every reason to brag about his dopeness.

Anyway, AYALA MUSEUM's DesignTalks hosted the event and invited industry people, design fiends, and motor heads to this rare opportunity to pick the brain of one of our generation's most influential automobile designers. My designer/architect alter ego went "0-60 in 2 seconds" crazy upon hearing the event - There is no way I'm letting this blow past me. Besides, I've been raised in a family where all grown men own and ride a Benz... So there's that deep-seeded admiration for anything Chedeng.

Of course, curating then blogging all the wisdom and inspiration I picked up from the lecture is next to impossible, but I took a few photos to show you how it went. I'll try my best to share with you the moment.

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The poster. Understated, yet powerful. Benz style.

Talk starts at 3:00 PM. It's already 3:10 PM... Pinoy time. HAHA All good, though! We were late ourselves!

The man of the hour... Wini Camacho.

Wini showing off his childhood sketches. Check out the middle panel. Yep! Those are sneakers!

A trike design he did when he was in college. Thought of the Nerf IVs!

A Vespa-inspired bike.

A biomorphic motorbike. Straight up weird, but right up my alley!

He did an interior study for a Mini Cooper... Design plate for school.

A conceptual roadster. Once again, when he was still in school.

A conceptual SUV/buggy. Made of pure steel and chock-full of technology.

A conceptual sedan he did for a Cadillac design plate. Just gorgeous.

Not sure if you can see it, but the aluminum strip that runs along the side of the car is just... WOW.

A rough tech sheet for a proposed Callaway roadster.

This was my favorite slide. He was telling us how they had to do hundreds and hundreds of schemes just to get it right. True in this industry.

Again... Hundreds and hundreds.

Front 3/4 view of the Callaway F-1/GT Hybrid.

Tech sheet for the Callaway Hybrid.

More renderings.

A 1:4 Scaled model of the Callaway Hybrid.

A view of his workshop when he was in design school.

After that part, he asked us to put our cameras away because most of the slides that he will show us are classified and are top-secret Mercedes-Benz designs.

The stuff he showed us made me really excited about the future. Let's leave it at that. :)

Q&A time, and Don Jaime is in the house!!! I want to be either one of those guys when I grow up.