Never once did I think a random Instagram reel would make me notice something that had always been right in front of me!
Found a link on YouTube for this, but this was pretty much the same video on Instagram:
I was watching a swan land on water when, for some reason, all I could think of was Concorde. The long neck, the nose pointing down, the body gliding behind it and, right at the very end, the legs coming down almost like the landing gear.
A quick Google search later, I found out people have been calling Concorde the "Swan of the Skies" for years. And somehow... despite watching countless Concorde videos and even building the LEGO set, I had never seen it.
That got me thinking.
Frank Stephenson, the legendary designer spoke heavily about how he drew inspiration from nature while designing the iconic McLaren P1. There's Japanese Shinkansen's nose taking inspiration from the Kingfisher's beak. And the wind turbine blades inspired by humpback whales feature bumpy edges called tubercles.
Some connections are pointed out to us. Others... we somehow stumble upon ourselves years later.
And I think that's what I appreciate the most. Not just the finished product, but the people behind it.
Because think about it for a second... How observant do you have to be to look at a sailfish and see the beginning of a McLaren? Or a kingfisher and solve an engineering problem that millions of passengers would never even know existed?
Somewhere beneath the engineering, the regulations, the manufacturing constraints and everything else... there's still a tiny observation that started it all.
And once you see it... You never quite look at them the same way again!