Passion Key Ingredient to Successful Design, Panel Says

DETROIT – Prominent automotive designers say instilling passion in design is the key to creating successful vehicles, but doing so requires overcoming obstacles and working hand-in-hand with engineers and other product-development personnel.

“We want people to have an emotive feeling when they see the car, and depending on where we are when we design it, and what kind of feeling we have, that gets transmitted into the car and the best cars arrive with that character,” Jason Castriota, creative director-Castriota Designs, says during an Automotive Press Assn. event here.

Castriota, who started out in the industry working for famed design house Pininfarina, says the definition of passion in the automotive industry has changed in recent years. A decade ago, luxury-oriented design was considered the epitome of passion, but that does not ring true today, he says.

“Now it’s about how do we personalize this experience and get people excited about it?” Castriota says.

Thomas Peters, director of exterior design, performance cars-General Motors, says there is no blueprint for designing passion into a vehicle, which runs counter to an automotive industry that is largely data-driven.

You can’t check boxes off when designing a car, he says, noting the best way to get the entire product-planning team on board is to demonstrate to them the designer’s vision.

“Some (people) aren’t comfortable with something you can’t quantify,” Peters says. “We’re in a period now where passion in some cases has to be demonstrated first so people can understand it.”

The data-driven automotive culture sometimes can get in the way of designing a successful vehicle, says Francois Farion, senior manager of design strategy-Nissan Design America.

Sometimes fails on the market, although all the data points indicate it should be a hit. Like Peters, Farion says it’s hard for data-driven people to put values on the intangibles designers bring to the table.

“Designers have long lived in this nebulous cloud where we’re told, ‘You’re not an engineer or marketers,’” he says. “For auto manufacturers to make that leap of faith and say, ‘OK, we’re going to trust you guys to have at it with design, but it’s going to compromise ingress and we’re going to have a smaller trunk than competitors, or another sacrifice,’ it’s hard for them to be accepting of that.”

While a passionate design is important, customer wants and needs also must be kept front of mind. Additionally, different people have different passions, Peters says, adding, “It’s not just the way something looks, but how it affects all the senses.”

Castriota concurs: “If you have a beautiful product that doesn’t speak to you, it’s a loss.”

The designer panel says another critical ingredient to a successful design is to lessen reliance on technology. All automakers use the latest computer-aided design software and 3-D digital renderings, but Peters says the human touch remains all-important.

“We embrace technology every day, but a differentiating factor for me is having hands working with clay,” he says. “That resonates through the vehicle and takes a great vehicle and makes it outstanding. Technology will continue, but there is something about the artistic aspect that is critical.”

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