When Mattjis Van Tuijl, a car designer for Audi, was sent to work at the Design Center in Santa Monica, California he started his own blog as a way to stay in contact with his friends back in the Netherlands. For a year now, he has been posting amazing pictures depicting Californian city life, architecture, people and, naturally, cars – the blog is called Carfreax.com/California after all.
As with most people that come here, he is blown away by the abundance of spectacular images that he encounters constantly, just by going to work, or grabbing a coffee. And, yes, California has that special light that is beyond perfect, any time of the day. “It is all for free – cool motifs, the perfect light, amazing landscapes – you just need to shoot,” says Van Tuijl.
Feeding his blog has become a key part of his creative life in many ways. Working in the car industry, a lot of his work will never be made public, although his input on the interior of the Audi Q7 is a rare case to the contrary. As a designer, he is an artist who needs feedback and communication to be inspired and motivated. The blog serves that purpose perfectly. On it, Van Tuijl gets creative, puts effort into composing the perfect collage, writes his head off, and feedback assuredly comes.
Meanwhile, the pictures have become his own private image bank. He uses them as reference for how people use their cars, how they make them their own. If you want to create the perfect car, you have to watch people “live” their cars. “Here in California, people have so much freedom to create their own special way of life - which also shows in their cars,” says Van Tuijl.
“It’s more about car culture - about the people - than just about the cars. It is more Intersection than Auto, Motor, Sport (a German car magazine),” says Van Tuijl. He carefully picks objects that tell a story, such as minute details of perfectly restored cars he shot at the Concours D’ Elegance in Newport Beach, the Hippie bus plastered with slogans and bold images, or the car that purposely matches the color of the house it is parked in front of. When in need of creative input, he browses through the images and there’s sure to be something in there that inspires a certain detail or color choice in his next project. In any case, the next big project on the agenda will be turning the collection of photos into a book.
Link:
http://www.carfreax.com/california
