One of the great production designers is no longer with us.

Ron Cobb, the production designer known for bringing Alien's Nostromo, Conan the Barbarian, and Back to the Future's DeLorean to life, has died at the age of 83.

Today we found out that Ron Cobb, the highly influential concept designer and art director, died in Sydney, Australia. It was his birthday. He was 83. But the legacy he leaves behind is truly staggering – and even if you never knew his name, chances are you were touched by his work. His draftsmanship is intricate but never unidentifiable; you always knew a Ron Cobb design when you saw one, defined by clean lines and a kind of bulky, lived-in aesthetic that made you believe that things like spaceships and giant robots and memory machines were actually real. Cobb was …