Aesthetics: Quantification and Deconstruction A Case Study in Motorcycles

This book addresses a perennial challenge for product planners and designers alike: how to objectively specify and quantify the aesthetics of products. It provides automotive product planners with a framework for the grammar of aesthetics and a tool for quantifying the aesthetics of an intended product. Further, it equips styling designers with a tool for connecting engineering and aesthetics.

Given the author’s extensive experience in motorcycle design, the motorcycle has been chosen as the frame of reference for automobiles. Specifically in the field of automobile design, where engineering and aesthetics go hand in hand, it also becomes important to clearly and objectively define the relationship between engineering design and aesthetics. Accordingly, this book (1) clearly establishes the objective parameters of aesthetics, (2) puts forward a method for quantifying aesthetics, (3) identifies the engineering design parameters affecting aesthetics, and (4) determines the relationship between parameters of aesthetics and engineering design. As such, it offers a useful guide not only for design professionals, but also for students and researchers of design.

Sushil Chandra is an R&D engineer working with Hero Motocorp, the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer. He was part of the design team for ‘Splendor’, the world’s best- selling motorcycle, and was chiefly responsible for the design of Hero Motocorp products, which included both studio and engineering aspects. He currently heads the body engineering function group, which vertically integrates all activities from conceptualization to mass production and focuses on the interplay of social, political and philosophical aspects with the world of engineering design. Literature, especially ancient and modern poetry, happens to be one of his loves. This confluence of engineering and art drew him to the field of automobile aesthetics, which he found intriguing and exciting at the same time, leading him to complete a PhD in the engineering of aesthetics. He has published several papers on the semantic aspects of motorcycle design.