Always open to input! The pictures I posted from my smartphone don't capture the contrast between the existing dash piece and the new trim.. the light is all washed out. It doesn't look like those photos in person, I was just too excited to wait to post the good ones

We took some proper photos with our DSLR that should show good lighting and contrast.

The design has been taking cues from the other silver trim pieces.. Dark in the middle and silver around the edges (gauge cups, climate control).

I'm going to go out on a limb and ask you to "hold that thought" and see if you think the same thing once the photos with proper lighting are available. I can tell you that the folks that were looking at it in person were freaking out on how great it looked

 

The screen is dimmable... you can set brightness levels that you want for high and low light conditions. There's an ambient light sensor that will then trigger the low/high light scenarios.

 

I don’t agree with “Saved” and think that you want contrast instead (as you show in your pics). I understand why Saved wants the color scheme to match the waterfall, but contrasting is better for a couple of reasons.

1. This is a retrofit. You can expect some fading and discoloration in a 12 year-old car such as my 2003 350z.
   
2. The waterfall has subtle color shading changes year to year. Because you cannot guarantee matching those subtle differences, it’s better to have a trim piece with a distinct contrast.

The pictures look great. I really like the large screen.

 

That's perfect.

It's handy having a manual adjustment capability when the ambient sensor "doesn't get it quite right."

Garmin GPS screens have a nice feature (night time mode which is a dark background with light foreground) which is triggered by time of day/night. The GPS "knows" where you are and thus whether it's day or night.

 

I see what grace is saying: that's an awful lot of silver. It's being compounded by the buttons also being silver.

I have a suggestion for a slight modification to the bezel: the present design isn't parallel to the edges of the waterfall; it's tapered and is further from the waterfall edge at the top of the bezel than it is at the bottom.

I would suggest that the bezel be redesigned to be slimmer at the bottom - and keep the distance from the bezel to the waterfall edge the same at the bottom as it is at the top.

As a result: slightly less silver; slightly less material; more aesthetically appealing (to me, at least).

I would also like to see the button array a contrasting black/anthracite/dark.

 

I've spent another couple of minutes pondering the pics of the bezel in the Z. I think I know what's bothering me about it - other than having the same objection as does savedbygrace.

I think that the silver is accentuating the 'squareness' of the Brainiac screen within the decided lack of squareness of the waterfall.

To solve both problems, I think that the bezel needs to be made of two parts. I think the outer portion should be silver (the 'frame'), but everything else should be dark. This will accentuate the 'V' of both the waterfall and the insert (I'm also aware you want to accentuate a 'V' within the design in general), and de-emphasize the parallel sides of the screen, which I think is important.

If it's designed as I envision, it'll also eliminate the possibility of wear to the paint immediately around the buttons, which I think will be a problem for many within a fairly short period of time.

If the inner portion remains plastic, it can be a slightly textured plastic - non-painted - for wear purposes.

 

Just doesn't look "right" to me. It's too much symmetry in an interior that's otherwise asymmetrical, and that's accentuated by a screen with an odd aspect ratio for that space. The screen and bezel would be better suited to the interior if vertically canted toward the driver in a fashion similar to the 3 small gauges.

 

Thanks for all the feedback everyone! I'll try and address all of your comments both on sizing/shape and colors..

Unfortunately we can't really make the bottom part any more narrow than it is. There is only a small overlap of the plastic at the bottom that covers the pre-existing opening. Any smaller at the bottom and you would see gaps through the opening where the stereo was.

We "could" make the top plastic wider to reach out further to the sides to make the line parallel to the side of the console. I'm just worried about it being too much plastic and adding a more bulky look.

We've tried the approach of angling a screen towards the driver and it unfortunately usually comes out looking really weird. Also it sinks the drivers side edge down further into the dashboard making it hard to see the content on that edge. As you can see how for the gauges, they had to cut out an angle in the dashboard to be able to give a line of sight to the driver for the face of the gauge.

I've created a couple of two toned photoshops. Some had commented that the inner should be dark, and others commented that the outer should be dark and also comments around dark buttons. So I've created those color schemes to see what you think

Original

 

The 1st PS pic looks the best, IMO. It allows the rectangular screen to blend better with the non-parallel sides of the waterfall.

 

Definitely the first two toned pic, looks great to me. You guys are doing awesome work.

 

I like the first pic also: by far the best. I think the texture and color of the plastic surrounding the screen should match one of the other plastics in the car, like (for instance) the top of the gauge cluster.

If the tolerance of the gap @ the bottom of the bezel is so close that you cannot narrow it any further, I think there's another change you can make that could make sense, and that is to redesign the silver lip to be somewhat more narrow: for the inner plastic to slope outward further and make the darker area larger and the silver area narrower. You could also experiment with giving the silver frame a slightly 'concaved' look, to further mimic the rings around the pods and dials; that could really set it off I think.

 

I'll reply later, but I think I can help you guys with some design tweaks now that I've seen the DSLR pics and rough photoshopping.

The silver definitely is far too much silver, another thought is that someone could always skin the inner or outer bevel with a hydro or vinyl overlay, but I think it's better to get the design fully perfected before release.

Glad you're open to input, you're on to a good thing, too good to let it turn out less than it could be.

Saved

 

I do like the first “Two Toned Photoshop” picture, but I really don’t think it’s any better than the all silver bezel. Going all silver (that matches the bezel on the instrument cluster in front of the steering wheel) provides a uniform look across the dash.

Another factor is the plane-changes across Braniac’s bezel. The result is a difference in visual shading due to the effects of lighting hitting at different angles. A single silver color whose angled surfaces appear differently depending upon the lighting provides an interesting effect.

 

Whatever you do, make sure that the material directly surrounding the buttons is as tough as the buttons themselves: you don't want to have that area easily marred by fingernail scratches or anything else, or it will look like crap in short order.

 

You make a great point. So often button surfaces are durable, but the surrounding trim is cheap.

 

IMO, all silver or all black would look best. Any two tone scheme would look a bit tacky to me.

Also, for the 08, could the silver frame just extend down a bit more externally to cover the lower din slot? I don't think divide in the console would be that noticeable.

 

Yes for an 08 the lower piece would need to extend down a bit further to cover the "notch"

I still need to get the Hi-res good photos off of Rob's camera to give a better idea of what the full silver color looks like.

The tricky part with colors is that (as seen in this thread) everyone has different tastes

 

Yeah, we've been working with our designer to try and exaggerate the "V" as much as possible. Like you said, even though we can't pull in the outer trim at the bottom, we may be able to pull in the bottom of the "V" further to and possibly push out the top of the "V" further to draw your eye more to the V shape than the sides of the trim.

 

We just posted up the official pictures of the 350Z install on our blog. These ones were shot with our DSLR instead of the washed out smartphone ones I posted before

Keep the feedback coming!

Blog Post
http://workshoptwelve.com/2015/11/16...-test-fitting/

 

I like it. The silver does look good.

Only thing I can think of, is on the subie the screen isn't as recessed as that. It might look better if it was less sunk into the waterfall.