A Retro CD for the Holidays
Every year I do a retro CD for the holidays that goes to friends and family. Whatever expertise in popular music that I do have is from the eighties, so I go forward one year in that decade—that means that this year I'm doing 1988. There's a story behind every year's CD and this one involved a 1985 Trans Am. So, I decided I would draw a 1985 Trans Am dashboard.
I had a fairly strong image in my mind, but I wanted to get this right, so I looked for some reference material.
I found a page from the 1985 Firebird Brochure that gave me some hints (including showing what was the top-of-the-line radio).
I also found a better view of the 1985 radios in the Pontiac full-line brochure.
November 19th: I launched Adobe Illustrator and started drawing. My experience is that the best thing to do is to get something I can look at and compare with the original. The style for this art over the years has always been a head-on view and I followed that sense this year.
Revision 01—at this point I was just trying to get the general proportions down.
Revision 02, November 22nd. I added a few more details, including a basic tachometer and the beginning of the acutely relevant car stereo. Note that the steering wheel is way too small—I knew I would have to fix this at some point.
I started to realize that the factory pictures didn't have nearly enough detail and that I'd need to look elsewhere. Time for some Google searches!
eBay Motors comes through for me with a picture of a long-ago-sold 1985 gage cluster.
Revision 05, about four hours later on that same productive evening. Starting to add just a little more shade and a tiny bit of color. All gages were in as was a primitive HVAC module. There's more detail on the stereo, but I hadn't yet realized that I need to have a cassette tape in the cassette opening.
Revision 08, November 24th. A lot more work with the relative shades of gray of the various components. I've remembered the cassette door opening and the warning light cut-outs are much closer to correct. The trip odometer now reads 198.8.
The next day, I decide to go with the top-of-the-line "UT4" radio, because it won't cost me any extra at this point.
Google helps me find a detailed image of UT4 radio faceplate and Photoshop CC 2018 helps me straighten the image enough to be useful.
While I'm at it, I also find a pretty solid photo of a 1985 Trans Am HVAC module.
Revision 10, November 25th, now about 10 hours in. The stereo is largely complete, along with the HVAC unit—both providing some color to a very gray image.
A view from behind the steering wheel of a 1985 Trans Am in one piece reminded me that the dash has buttons. Better take care of that!
Revision 13, November 27th. The dash now has a few buttons and there is primitive orange backlighting for the gages. There's also some painstaking detail work on the stereo indicator lights, which is the most finished part of the drawing at this point. I've used the wonderful www.identifont.com to get at least close to the various fonts that Pontiac used.
Revision 15, November 28th. The dashpad goes into place, completely changing the scale of the drawing (oops!). I add a light gray background to get a feel for the silver CD color that this will be printed on. The steering wheel is still way too small. I largely fix the HVAC to stereo relative size.
Revision 16, November 29th. It's mostly color balance work as I get ready to test printing on both paper and CD. The steering wheel gets a tiny bit larger and there's some other detail work, including adding a radio station readout to the stereo.
The first CD print test—mostly a test of basic layout. Not so bad …
Revision 18, December 1st. Tick, …, tick, tick. The first test prints have gone surprisingly well, so I feel I can pull the gray background. More color balance work. Also, the trip odometer is now in the right place (it shouldn't be centered in the speedometer).
Revision 19, December 3rd, about 20 hours in. More and better buttons. Using drop shadow to give some depth. I believe it was around this point in holiday CD graphic development that my wonderful wife began to think I was putting just a little too much time into this illustration.
Revision 22, December 5th. More drop shadow and improved switches—but the big news is the proper graph patterned background on the gages (new for 1985!). Secondary gages now have needle mounts and the warning light cut-outs now have backlighting. The steering wheel gets a little bigger, gains better color balance, gains a little texture, and gets a more detailed shape.
Revision 23, December 7th. There's (primitive) stitching on the steering wheel! I feel like I'm making progress on this drawing, but it doesn't feel close to done.
Revision 24, December 9th. There's better stitching on the steering wheel and more of it. I change the odometer to be more symbolic—42,436.3 marks my first squadron (VA-42), my first aircraft carrier (CV-43), and my final aircraft carrier (CV-63). The coolant indicator now matches the rest of the icons.
Revision 25, December 12th. Even more stitching on the steering wheel. In addition, more switches and the left-side control pod gets a lot more accurate (a close-up from another Bay Motors listing tells me that it has the same graph patterned background as the gages). Some detail work on the HVAC controls.
Revision 27, December 14th, over 30 hours now committed. I remembered that the passenger's side needed its map pocket. I also reshaped the HVAC/stereo console and brought the mid-dash vent closer to the gages. Guess what? There's more places for that graph pattern …
Revision 29, December 15th. Finally coming down the home stretch. Added depth to the HVAC and stereo, worked on switch detail, and fixed the stitching color and overlay on the map pocket.
Revision 32, December 16th—frozen at about 4:00 PM EST at approximately 38 hours spent. Lots of final fixes: drew the hash markings on the gages more accurately (using Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform), added more detail to all the gage needles, added detail to the cassette tape itself, and finalized the steering wheel. And (finally) walked away …
The exterior of the final CD booklet, created in InDesign CC 2018. The speedometer in the background is a second artboard within the original Illustrator file.
Epilogue
In the process of documenting this in Behance, I found some problems (of course). I resolved to do what was reasonable to fix the issues.
Revision 33, December 19th. It turns out the stereo/HVAC console also has the graph patterned background. There's also more switches that go with the fancy stereo.
Revision 35, December 20th. A photo from a different angle shows me that I have placed the HVAC/stereo console way too far to the right, so I begin to move it toward the correct location. I also add some plastic under the map pocket and the appropriate "Performance Suspension" badge. The Trans Am type and logo on the map pocket are too orange, so I fix that.
Revision 36, December 22nd. Not only is the HVAC/stereo console in wrong place, but it's also a little too large—fixed. The gage backlighting gets a bit more of a red tinge.
Revision 37, December 23rd. A total of 49 hours and I'm really done this time. I pull back a little bit on the drop shadow and finally have a decent fan icon for the HVAC. One last touch is the two thumbwheels for the center vents.
