For this year's AIGA fund raising gala, designers were asked to create a pinewood derby car either to race or to be auctioned off at the event. I've never made a pinewood derby car before but it seemed really fun so I thought I would try to make one. Not having adequate carving tools, I just left the car as a block and screen printed all over it using letters and shapes from the new Eames font set by House Industries. I knew the blocky shape was not optimized for racing so I added extra weights and lubricated the wheels with graphite powder to help it go faster.

Here is the finished car and some work in progress photos. Surprisingly, my little car made it all the way to the semi-finals. Hot Studio was proudly mentioned many times during the event!

Race footage and photos of other fabulous pinewood derby race cars...