Belker对车辆的兴趣来源于一个童年的朋友，他让Belker不知不觉走上了设计之路。“他是个车迷，我也很喜欢它，但出于不同的原因”，Belker说，“我总是喜欢改变东西，这让他发狂。但是他却送给我一本杂志，那个杂志上说有一个学校能学习汽车设计，就这样他在我的命运中帮了我，让我走上了正确的道路”。现在Belker已经42岁了，进入设计行业也已经15年了。“我很晚才想到要做汽车设计。我已经26岁了，并且完成了工程学的学位，在这之前我从没听说过设计艺术中心学院这个名字”。他承认，“但是一旦我看到他们所做的，我就知道这就是我的未来了”。从设计艺术中心学院毕业以后，Belker就到保时捷开始了梦幻般的设计工作。“尽管我在保时捷的时间不长”。他说道，“但我交到了一些永久的朋友”。从保时捷出来以后，Belker到了另外一个著名的汽车制造商梅赛德斯.奔驰公司加利福尼亚分部设计S与M系列车型。

尽管Belker早期的设计都是工业设计产品，如车辆，但自从为蝙蝠侠与罗宾设计了蝙蝠车开始，Belker就开始涉足娱乐业设计。“从那时开始我参与了很多有趣的项目，”Belker说，“有一些项目远比我们看电影来的困难，但无论如何我们都需要快速完成。我在少数派报告中的工作是我职业生涯的一个亮点，除了它后面无数的人力以外，它给我了一个机会来展示一种未来感的车辆，那是我们从来没见过的。

Belker非常清楚在娱乐业的车辆设计与汽车设计工业的真实车辆设计是不同的,这是因为在汽车制造业，我们有一些硬性规定要遵守，并且有些限制，需要使用其他生产线上的配件。虽然我对这并没有感到有什么困难，但这就是汽车设计业。在娱乐业或者说是游戏世界，你是没有任何限制的,完全取决于我来使用什么比率与尺寸。这些项目包括了漫画蝙蝠侠，未来感的少数派报告，魔幻片戴帽子的猫。非常不同的目标与非常不同的哲学。”从真实车辆到未来感车辆，Belker享受每个制作所带来的挑战。“现在我完全沉浸在Hot Wheel的世界中，除了终极赛车以外，我还有一些很有趣，奇异与挑战性的车辆，它们很快会上架。”

Belker的作品包含了很多的风格，他形容他自己的视觉风格为，“大胆的图形，并且小心的制作新造型，”他继续说，“我喜欢设计任何东西，并且我也是这么做的。我设计家具，运动装备，袋子，玩具，车等等，我不喜欢反复的做相同的东西。”

为电影设计车辆的时候激动人心的一点就是，它们经常会被制作出来，Belker描述了这种一次性的汽车设计，“这些东西不便宜，而导演不愿意花钱。一旦我的基本设计通过了，有一个3D设计师会将它在电脑中做出来，使用这些信息我们能制作出一个小的模型，然后使用这些数据制作出一个真实尺寸的泡沫模型，制作玻璃纤维的模具，并且开始制作真实的车辆。同时底盘被制作了出来，悬挂与动力单元也装配好了。这些车辆是用于相应的电影场景的。如果需要它跑快也是可以做到的。这些数据也可以用到后期制作中，因为电脑与因特网，它们可以做到非常的流线型，感谢老天！”

Harald Belker PhD hon.
Harald Belker is a force of nature in the area of automotive design with a list of design credits that include the Smart, the Batmobile for the Warner Bros. Batman and Robin film, and the futuristic cars of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report including the sporty red Lexus. Other movie credits include vehicle design for Armageddon, Inspector Gadget, Fahrenheit 451 and Cat in the Hat and concept designs for Spider-Man 1 and 3.

Automotive design
Belker’s initial interest in all things automotive started by hanging out with a childhood friend who unwittingly laid the foundation for his design career. “He was car crazy and I liked it, but for different reasons”, he explains. “I wanted to change things all the time. Drove him nuts, but he was the one that sent me a magazine about the schools where one can do automotive design and therefore he had a hand in my career and sort of helped me to get me into the right direction.” At 42, Belker has been involved in the design field for roughly 15 years. “I started dreaming about car design pretty late. I was about 26 and finished a degree in engineering before I even heard of the Art Center College of Design”, he admits. “But once I saw what they did, I was pretty sure that this would be my future as well.” After graduating from the Art Center College of Design, Belker fell into the dream design job of designing cars for Porsche. “Though my time at Porsche was short”, he explains, “I made some long lasting friends”. From Porsche, Belker then moved to another iconic automotive company at Mercedes Benz in California where he worked on the Mercedes Smart Car as well as the ‘S’ and ‘M’ class models.

Entertainment vs. industrial design
Though Belker’s early design work centered on the industrial design of cars, he gained a taste for entertainment design when he was offered the opportunity to design the Batmobile for the Batman and Robin movie. “Since then I have worked on many fun projects”, admits Belker. “Some of the projects have been hard to watch movies, but nevertheless they were a blast to work on. My work on Minority Report was an absolute highlight of my career because aside from the manpower behind it, it gave me a chance to show a future sense of vehicle design that we had not seen before.”

Belker is well aware of the different dynamics of automotive design for the entertainment industry as opposed to the industrial design that results in a car on the road: “The difference is that for the automotive world, you get a package with hard points, with restrictions, and parts being used from other lines, and then some more restrictions. I don’t have a problem with that, but that is the world of car design. In the entertainment or game world, you have none of that. It is up to me to choose what proportions and dimensions will work for the vehicle to fulfil the requirements. The projects go from Comics (Batman), to future (Minority Report) to fantasy (Cat in the Hat). Very different goals and very different philosophies.” From real cars, to futuristic cars, Belker enjoys the challenges that each produce. “Right now I am completely submerged in the world of Hot Wheels. Besides the ultimate racer, I have a couple cars that are funny, different and challenging. They’re hitting the shelves very soon. ”

Style
A glance at Harald Belker’s body of work shows a great range of styles. He describes his visual style as “graphically bold, with the sensitivity and vision to push new forms”. He continues: “I like to design everything and I do. I am working on furniture, sports equipment, bags, toys, cars etc. I don’t want to do the same thing over and over.”

From thought to movie production
One of the thrills of designing cars for movies is that they are often built. Belker describes the biggest challenge in this type of one-off automotive design is cost: “These things are not cheap and producers don’t like to spend money. Once I get the basic design approved, I have a 3D guy model it in the computer. With that information we can output a small model and use that data later to mill a full size model out of foam, make fiberglass molds and start the full size car. In parallel a chassis is built, suspension and power plant located, etc. The movie vehicle is built for the scenes in the script. If it has to go fast it will. The same data can also be used for the postproduction phase. It all has become very streamlined because of computers and the Internet. Thank god!”

Inspiration
Belker credits the strong group of friends that he met during his design studies as an inspiration in his work: “I was lucky to graduate with a great bunch of guys from Art Center. We are still meeting and working together.”“I get my ideas from addressing the issue at hand”, he adds. “I don’t like to research or look at other cars for instance. I absorb everything from my environment anyway. My goal is to do new things and not redo things. It is difficult, and sometimes when I think I’ve got something new I see it a day later and realize that it had influenced me subconsciously.”

The medium
Belker’s design career and studies mean that he has learnt and worked with both traditional and digital tools: “I love digital work, but I have spent years learning the basics, perfecting a way of working with traditional media such as markers and gouache”, explains Belker. “With these principles, I have been able to effectively move into the digital world. These tools, especially Photoshop, make it all much easier and are great for presentation purposes.”

Making a name for yourself
Not surprisingly, Belker is very upbeat about the discipline of design and its value as a career path. He offers the following advice for those looking to move in this direction: “Make sure that you’ve got a good understanding of design. Most of the time you have to work for people with a different sense of design than your own. It takes a long time to develop skills that will make you special. If you succeed, it is the best job in the world, because it is always new and constantly changing. Follow your dream!!!”