Entertainment news source Variety reported on Monday that designer, illustrator, and artist Syd Mead passed away on Monday of complications from lymphoma. He was 86.

Mead was born in Minnesota in 1933, and is most famously known as a neofuturist conceptual artist and an industrial designer. He worked on such films as Blade Runner, Aliens, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Short Circuit, Time Cop, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Johnny Mnemonic , and Tron . More recently he worked on the Elysium film.

In 1983, Mead started working with Japanese corporate clients, including Bandai, Sony , Dentsu , Minolta, NHK , Honda, and more. He provided designs for the unfinished Yamato 2520 video anime, as well as eight mecha designs in the Turn A Gundam series. He also worked on a proposed live-action Gundam film from Lionsgate in the 1980s that never moved forward.

Mead had announced in September that he was retiring. He was set to receive the Art Directors Guild's William Cameron Award during the 24th awards ceremony in February.



Image via Fireball Tim Lawrence's YouTube channel

Source: Variety (Lorraine Wheat)