Visit yesterday's vision of the future

Good news if you've always been a bit disappointed the twenty-first century hasn't turned out as futuristic and swooshy as they promised us it would back in the Fifties and Sixties: the legendary Syd Mead has announced an exhibition of his works this autumn. And we want to live in them.

Syd who? Shame on you. After a working for Ford's design studio in the early Sixties, Syd went on to draw the ‘Spinner' police car from Blade Runner, the Light Cycle bikes from Tron, Jean Claude Van Damme's wheels in Timecop, and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. And this autumn he's opening the most comprehensive exhibition of his work ever.

Thing is though, Mead didn't just draw a load of old knockers from the movies. When he was at Ford he contributed to the legendary - and entirely insane - two-wheeled Gyron concept, as well as creating the manufacturer's slightly mad futureland display at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

By 1970 Mead's Jet-age visions had become iconic, prompting him to open his own illustration studio. During his 64-year career, he was commissioned variously by Playboy, Honda, Intercontinental Hotels, Sony, Minolta, and the producers of Gundam (those insane, massive robot things from Japan).

Now click on for some images. The head to the ‘Progressions' exhibition, which opens on August 18 at the Rebecca Randall Bryan Art Gallery in Conway, South Carolina.