LogInSyd Mead, the mastermind behind the concepts of Blade Runner, Tron, Aliens and many other projects died Monday at the age of 86.
The news came from journalist John McElroy and then was confirmed by Roger Servick. Mead was going to receive the Art Directors Guild’s William Cameron Menzies Award during the Guild’s 24th Annual awards in February for his contributions.
“I am so saddened to hear of the passing of visionary illustrator and concept artist Syd Mead. His pivotal role in shaping cinema was unique, with a singular ability to visualize the future," said ADG President Nelson Coates. "As one of the most influential conceptual artists of our time, his visions and illustrations of future technological worlds will remain as a testament to his vast imagination.”
The artist's career began in the auto, electronics and steel industries at Ford Motor Co., Sony, U.S. Steel and Phillips Electronics. Then he moved on to help create movies, working as a production illustrator working with director Robert Wise on Earth’s nemesis V’Ger in the 1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
In 1982, he worked as an artist on Blade Runner and joined director Steven Lisberger to work on Tron.
“For a city in 2019, which isn’t that far from now, I used the model of Western cities like New York or Chicago that were laid out after the invention of mass transit and automobiles, with grids and linear transport," he said when discussing his work on Blade Runner with Curbed. "I thought, we’re at 2,500 feet now, let’s boost it to 3,000 feet, and then pretend the city has an upper city and lower city."