Samsung Forklift Design

While working at Walter Dorwin Teague in New York City I got the opportunity to work on a project for Samsung Heavy Industries. They were looking a an alternative take on a light-duty forklift design. But first, we had to get the job. I was asked to create a series of heavy equipment concepts to show we could think outside the box. Several of these ideas are shown below with the drawing of the vertical loader being featured in an article in Automobile Magazine. Doing these drawings was some of the most fun I had while at Teague. I got to use all of my automotive design presentation skills on a program that had nothing to do with cars. Samsung loved the concepts. Teague got the gig.

Once they signed off on the proposal, the work began. Most forklift designs tend to be driven by cost and functionality. That didn’t stop me from trying something radical. Until this point, the cab of all forklifts was visually “static”. They were literally steel-framed boxes. No gesture. No movement. I wanted to bring a sense of movement to forklift design. I wanted the cab to gesture and have direction. My complex forms and surface development just enhanced this gesture. We built a full-size model to show how a “cab forward” forklift could be made. In the end, much of the complex surfaces of the rear weight were lost but the breakthrough, gesturing cab made it to production and is now an industry standard.