DUTCH DESIGN WEEK 2009
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NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL GIFT FAIR
ISTANBUL DESIGN WEEKEND 2009
BAUHAUS SUMMER SCHOOL 2009
For car designers, these might well be both the worst and best of times. As for the bad: some automakers are forecasting the lowest sales since 1998; emissions seem to have become the new tobacco in terms of public ire and (in other countries) regulation; and with each new lawsuit, designers are beholden to increasingly draconian safety standards. On the upside, these are noble challenges to meet -- the kinds of constraints that will, in theory, make for safer, cleaner, and better looking cars. Maybe even all three at once.
Monday's Times Talk panel "Designing the Car of the Future," presented a provocative subsection of the automotive industry's leading design lights: Edward Welburn, VP of Global Design at GM; Joel Piaskowski, Chief Designer, Hyundai Kia; and Franz von Holzhausen, Director of Design at Mazda North America.
Hyundai's Piaskowsky focused on Hyundai's environmental commitment almost to the point that I forgot the presentation was supposed to be about design. Perhaps also because most of the cars he showed in his presentation looked like, well, Hyundais. The big takeaway here seemed to be that South Korea is investing heavily in hydrogen - and Hyundai is on it. The government has decreed that half of automobiles in the country should run on hydrogen by 2040; a standard reportedly exceeded only by Iceland, which, to put things in perspective has 300,000 people to South Korea's 49 million.
I have to give it to Mazda's Von Holzhausen for having the (whatever it is) to barely mention the environment and just show us the car porn. First, we had to understand Mazda's 'zoom zoom' slogan/philosophy by means of a five minute film of people doing slow-motion donuts in the desert, jumping cars over hills, and generally rocking out in their Mazdas. Mazda is positioning itself as a means by which to return to the visceral pleasure of driving that you may have forgotten while carpooling in your Prius. This is 'zoom zoom.' Practically heresy these days, but they did dress the sin up nicely. Mazda has some of the most beautiful concept vehicles I've seen - one of which, the Furai, is on view at the auto show this week.
GM's Welburn was last and gave certainly the most thoughtful talk of the evening. Welburn is so genial and insightful that it's easy to forget that this is the man at least partially responsible for bringing us the Hummer. Welburn's talk about how designers were tacking some of the real challenges in the field these days was the kind of thing I came to hear. There were some amazing shots of the colossal GM wind tunnel, and by the end I even mostly believed him that a 2007 Tahoe has a better drag coefficient than an older model Corvette. I think we all wish something like the mostly electric Volt would have come out a long time ago, but I think GM has seen the light, or at least the taillights of Toyota.
In the final analysis of this panel, the car of the future appears to be just bursting forth from its cocoon. I couldn't help but notice that most of the cars being shown with experimental power systems were clothed in a very non-experimental light SUV shell. On the other end of the spectrum, there were beautiful cars which seemed abstracted from the considerations of fuel entirely. It's a transitional time in car design, and, in the end, exciting to see some great designers struggling with the questions that will define the next generation of cars.
Ian Curry is an Interaction Designer at Local Projects, where he is working on new ways for people to explore museums. Ian was previously at frog Design where he helped create websites, large-scale interactive displays, product UI, and iTV interfaces for clients including MTV, BBC, Hewlett-Packard, IPC, and Microsoft. If you walk by where he lives in Brooklyn, you are likely to hear him playing the cello, badly.
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Comments
Why do these discussions always revolve around superficial styling, manufacturing process and old dated technology (which should already have been implemented already?) When are these companies going to come to the 21st century and start having more interesting discussions about what a future experience should be for customers, discussions based around Interaction Design and Experience Design within the vehicle, discussions about the importance of designing interfaces which not only engage users but also create compelling experiences, discussion about the importance of both the physical and non physical interfaces within a vehicle? I worked in the automotive Industry for 3 years and I tried to bring some awareness of the importance of interaction design and experience design but the core problem was that not only didn't anybody know what these field of work where, but they didn't even see how they could improve the customers experience with in a vehicle. They seemed to be forever in a struggle between what automotive styling wanted, what engineering wanted, and what the accounting department wanted. Funny that the user never seemed to be on anybody?s radar, and even when I would ask them point blank, so who is our user, they would all shrug there shoulders and look to the marketing guy for an answer. His response would be a PowerPoint Presentation filled with marketing buzz words which was absolutely useless to me and when I would press them all for more detail, the response was always, we don't have that information or we can't give you that information. It was at that point I realized that they had no historical or quantifiable data about any of the customers, all they had where feedback and questioner forms that the marketing guys had put together, with no human factors input, and what made me laugh even more is that they believed human factors was only ergonomics?. WHAT THE?????
Designers of automotive interiors need to pull there fingers out and realize that they can't design automotive interiors as process of styling, automotive exteriors have very minimal interactions with a user, most of the time the interactions only occur with the key fobs or the handles of the vehicles, but the interior is a completely much more complex environment, interfaces are everywhere and interactions between the user and vehicle are constantly occurring and constantly changing. Designers in charge of the vehicles interior need to design the entire interior as a single experience and not as a disparate dysfunctional collection of experiences. I once had an argument with engineer in charge of climate control; the argument was around the placement of the heat control knobs and the look and feel and placement of the air-conditioning icon. His argument was "if it's not broke don't try and fix it", my argument was that if you don't let me find alternatives, how can you tell me there isn't a better way of doing things. I lost that battle and a lot of other battles simply because I couldn't shift the discussion from design vs engineering / form vs function, to what's best for the user, and how can we design new experiences with new technology and new materials that afford the user a better, simpler experience.
Quick read.
Car of the future: train car
Since when does more restrictions make, in theory, better looking cars?
Very interesting comment Jay. I was shocked when I a few years back started working at a design studio. It seems that at least 90% of the attention is going towards product styling and getting the shape right.
Im aware that making a product visually attractive is important - but I think theres so much more to it, especially when it comes to complex interaction with electronic interfaces etc.
The problems often arise already within the clients brief, because they often think of the task as making their product beautiful.
When fx. designing a new lcd-tv and the brief only is about making the next revolutionary shape ( which in this case very well could be making all but the lcd disappear... )
I dont think the client is ignorant - they just want to sell a lot of tv's, and since you dont thoroughly test-drive a tv in the shop - whats the problem then. In fact the lack of attention / will to prioritize the interface also results in very nicely shaped shiny lcd's with ugly and cheap looking, incomprehensible remotes.
Agree that a more holistic approach is needed and we have to come up with experiences that not only are immediate visually pleasing, but also intuitive and interesting to use in the long run.