P o l e s t a r 1 K
__
This concept originates from my Instagram. It was drawn up for the #InktoberPolestarChallenge, October 2019. The objective here was to doodle anything Polestar. 3D-design wasn't allowed. Needless to say I failed that objective miserably. Here is the story of what happened.
Design Process
While I deeply love the Polestar design language, I struggled to find a subject that made sense for this exercise. It seemed redundant to reproduce any version of the commercial car. I wasn't going to create something in a few days that was going to match the original design, or even be interesting enough to warrant the effort. Therefore my goal was to attempt something radically different, and see if fun ideas would surface in that field.
So I built a Polestar Roboracer.
Above is the original key sketch that set the direction for the design. To be honest I wasn't quite sure what I was even going to make right until I put this sketch down. The long tail intrigued me. I figured I could nudge the Polestar form language in a direction leaning closer to Scifi, building a more extreme version of their vehicles.
Overview
It proved challenging to create a racecar from Polestar's peaceful, nearly architectural shapes. I decided to exagerate its character lines. To create the functional race-aethetic, I made good use of the bright orange, seen in functional details on the production cars (specifically on the brakes and wiring).
About that Secretly Evil AI Brain
Because it was around Halloween when I built this thing, I figured I would make it evil, just for giggles. So yea. This racer is secretly plotting against mankind. Hope you're not mad about that. It's still pretty fast too.
Oh, and in case you we're wondering: I named the Polestar Roboracer '1K' after the T-1000 from Terminator 2. No, it does not melt. Yet.
For the ‘heart’ of the car, I took inspiration from the beautifully designed cable connectors in the boot of the original Polestar. A Roboracer is the ultimate excuse to make these electronics a prominent design feature.
This was a two-week-project. All in all, it came down to just a couple of stolen evenings after work. I’m happy with how it turned out. It’s encouraging to see that it doesn’t always require years to create rewarding designs. I’m gonna try to strike a balance between long-haul, detailed design projects and these short little sprints in the future. I had some good, well-contained fun!
#LetThemFight
Since the Polestar 1k became too preoccupied with trying to destroy humanity all the time, Polestar created a Dark variant, to actually do some racing. This new one actually loves humans. A lot. More on my Instagram.
