Car Body Design - Publications

Prius: Toyota's design future

Thu, 28 May 2009

For a glimpse of Toyota's future design trends, check out the Prius.

The third generation, debuting 18 May 2009 in Japan, stays true to the line's role as a vanguard of futuristic styling and sports many new elements that will be popping up soon in other models.

Chief among these are the sharply creased corners, the forward placement of the Toyota badge, a lowered grille and styling that Toyota's global design chief Wahei Hirai calls "free-form geometrics". The goal was to create an avant-garde, high-tech look that also screams green.

Interview with David Beasley

Mon, 25 May 2009

With a Masters in Design from Coventry University and a Masters in Art from the Royal College of Art, as well as career highlights such as being part of the team for the Mini Clubman show car shown in Frankfurt 2005 and Geneva 2006, and most recently being the lead exterior designer for the Pininfarina B0 / Bluecar shown Paris 2008, David Beasley has plenty of thoughts on what it takes to succeed in design.

His experiences have included working for companies such as Electronic Arts, Pinewood Studios, Land Rover, Mini, BMW, Volvo Trucks, various consultancies, and now Pininfarina

. In this short interview we take a look at what motivates him, as well as what he thinks it takes to become a successful car designer.

Japanese Aesthetics in Design

Tue, 05 May 2009

Contemporary Japanese life is embedded with rich cultural, religious and spiritual traditions. These traditions inform and dictate the way in which Japanese people live their daily life and also in the way the material world is constructed around them.

These traditions go beyond merely a few simple guidelines by which to live ones life- rather they speak of a set of ideals that have existed for centuries but have only been exposed to the western world for a little over 200 years.

These ideals, and others, underpin much of Japanese cultural and aesthetic norms on what is considered tasteful or beautiful.

Below are the four main aesthetic ideals/principles and their relevance to the nature of design and form.

Economic crisis and Design opportunities

Wed, 29 Apr 2009

For every crisis, there are five steps to go through until we are out of it, one of those is « the rebellion » phase. This step is when people realize that, to overcome the crisis, they must try to do something.

This is a very prolific time during which everybody tries his or her best to react. Proposing concrete alternative solutions becomes necessary and useful.

The Design world is particularly excited during this phase because it is the time to make the necessary changes to move on better basis. So, to the question: is the economic crisis a Design opportunity? My answer is yes!

Supporting Early Styling Design of Automobiles Using Sketch-based 3D Shape Construction

Tue, 14 Apr 2009

In the early stages of automotive design, designers produce a rich set of concept sketches to develop and communicate their ideas. These sketches convey useful information regarding the desired shape and style. However, creating a 3D digital model consistent with the sketch is a laborious process with existing CAD tools. This shortcoming limits most conceptual explorations to 2D, leaving the designer with little or no means to realize their ideas in 3D. To address this challenge, this work presents a new method that helps car designers transform their 2D concept sketches into 3D geometry using simple, interactive techniques.

At the heart of our approach is an optimization-based shape deformation algorithm that takes as input a set of fiducial points marked by the user on the sketch.

The proposed algorithm first aligns, and then deforms, an underlying template model until its fiducial nodes match those marked in the sketch. Next, the designer refines the template model by tracing the car�s key character lines on the sketch.

Finally, using the newly shaped template model as a substrate, the designer can explore different styling ideas by sketching and modifying 3D curves directly on the template. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on several examples.

Interview with Andrew Sheffield

Mon, 06 Apr 2009

A former student of Coventry University and the Royal College of Art, Andrew Sheffield is an automotive designer with over 7 years studio experience.

He has worked for GM Europe on Advanced and Production Programmes in England and Germany.

Andrew is currently working on freelance projects and has taken time out to answer some questions and share his thoughts on car design for DesignerTechniques.

Design & Crisis

Mon, 23 Mar 2009

As everybody knows since 6 months we are in a deep and complicated economic global crisis. It all started in US with the bad management of "subprime financial products". With the fall of the bank system an incredible domino effect occurred touching almost every country on earth. Everybody is concerned by this fast crisis that in a short period of time provoked a transversal collapse.

High rate of job's loss from US to Russia passing by Europe and India, China and Japan. The automobile industry is one of the most depressed sector of activities suppliers included.

How all this is affecting design and designers life?

Sketching Mazda's designs

Sun, 22 Mar 2009

Mazda has turned to motoring journalists for inspiration for its new compact SUV. Paddy Comyn went to Amsterdam, armed with a pencil and eraser to lend his 'expertise'.

We always figured that Mazda designers were a clever lot. They have scored some really outstanding successes over the years. The 323F of the late 1980s might have been dubbed the hairdresser's Porsche, but it transformed the very dull small family car segment at the time. The MX-5 is a modern-day classic, now in its third-generation and the RX-7 and RX-8 sports cars are beautiful pieces of design.

Mazda consistently wins awards for its design studies, if not for its painfully annoying theme tunes as well as the rest. The Furai concept unveiled at this year's North American Motor Show shows just how talented Mazda's various design teams can be.

How to Design Cars Like a Pro

Tue, 17 Mar 2009

This book describes how car design and technology work through the eyes of the most talented and powerful car designers in the world. The interviews give a deep understanding of why we see what we see on the highways of the world.

Author Tony Lewin has been a highly regarded magazine editor on the world stage for so long that some of the top young guns revealing all in this book were hanging on his words just a few years ago.

Construction and Modification of 3D Geometry Using a Sketch-based Interface

Sat, 14 Mar 2009

We present an interactive pen-based computer program for designing 3D objects through direct sketching. The proposed techniques are tailored toward the creation of free-form curves and surfaces, and are therefore particularly useful for styling design purposes. In our approach, the design process consists of two main steps. In the first step, the user designs a wireframe model by sketching its constituent curves in 3D.

Using purely sketch-based operations, the initial curves can then be modified as desired. In the second step, the user constructs interpolating surfaces on the wireframe to obtain a solid model. Again, through sketch-based operations, the user can modify the initial surfaces, and specify the boundary conditions if necessary.

In addition to the main modeling operations, a gesture-based command interface allows many of the frequently used commands to be input through pen strokes. The utility of our system is demonstrated with various examples.

ILoveSketch: As-Natural-As-Possible Sketching System for Creating 3D Curve Models

Mon, 09 Mar 2009

We present ILoveSketch, a 3D curve sketching system that captures some of the affordances of pen and paper for professional designers, allowing them to iterate directly on concept 3D curve models.

The system coherently integrates existing techniques of sketch-based interaction with a number of novel and enhanced features. Novel contributions of the system include automatic view rotation to improve curve sketchability, an axis widget for sketch surface selection, and implicitly inferred changes between sketching techniques.

We also improve on a number of existing ideas such as a virtual sketchbook, simplified 2D and 3D view navigation, multi-stroke NURBS curve creation, and a cohesive gesture vocabulary.

An evaluation by a professional designer shows the potential of our system for deployment within a real design process.

Winning by design: the methods of Gordon Murray

Wed, 04 Mar 2009

This is a case study of the working methods of one particularly successful designer in a highly competitive design domain, Formula One racing car design. Gordon Murray was chief designer for the very successful Brabham and McLaren racing car teams in the 1970s and 1980s.

His record of success is characterized by innovative breakthroughs, often arising as sudden illuminations, based on considering the task from first principles and from a systemic viewpoint.

His working methods are highly personal, and include intensive use of drawings. Personality factors and team management abilities also appear to be relevant. There are some evident similarities with some other successful, innovative designers.

Interview with Luciano Bove

Tue, 09 Dec 2008

Luciano Bove is currently a Design Manager at Renault in France, having previously worked as Design Leader at Centro Stile Fiat in Turin.

He has also taught for about twelve years transportation design courses in Italy (IAAD, IED schools) and Switzerland (Art Center Europe).

Today, as a member of the Renault Design school committee, he manages and follows up sponsored projects in Design schools: a great opportunity to communicate about Design Management.

In this article we find out his thoughts on car design, and what it takes to succeed as a car designer.

Interview with Tony Catignani

Mon, 15 Sep 2008

As program leader of transport design at Umeå Institute of Design, one of the worlds leading automotive design schools, Tony has good idea of what it takes to succeed in design.

In this short interview, Tony gives advice on how to prepare a folio for an interview, as well as thoughts on his favourite piece of automotive design ever.

The Future of BMW Design

Mon, 14 Apr 2008

Designers and artistes opine on the looks of the new BMWs

New ideas are not always embraced. This holds true for automotive design. Two of the most controversial automobiles BMW has ever produced, at least in terms of their styling, are the 7 Series sedan and the Z4 roadster.

As a way of understanding the philosophy behind BMW's design direction, and to take a different approach to its cars' new styling, european car interviewed designers and artists both from within and outside of the automotive industry, including some involved in architectural design, product design, fashion design and fine art.

What do these designers and artists see when they view a new BMW automobile?

To lend some direction to their responses, we asked three questions: What is your background? What kind of cars do you love? And, of course, what do you think of the design of the Z4 and 7 Series?

Interview with Jay Shuster

Wed, 09 Apr 2008

Jay Shuster was born in Pontiac, Michigan. He attained a four year Industrial Design degree from CCS (College for Creative Studies) in 1993. Today, Jay is a concept artist at Pixar.

It is a bit of a full circle to reconnect with Jay Shuster. He worked at Alias Research briefly, his life had a lot in store for him, but nontheless, he contibuted to the team that gave birth to the paint technology at Alias Research that now lives in products like AliasStudio and SketchBook Pro. Jay left the company just before I joined, so I never had the opportunity to meet him until years later. Despite this, his name has always been familiar to me, whether it was through stories I'd heard from mutual friends or following his inspiring work in the industry.

Car Design Glossary

Thu, 14 Feb 2008

From "A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design" by Michael Lamm and Dave Holls, 1996.

Improvements of the KIVA Dense Spray Modeling for HSDI Diesel Engines

Fri, 01 Feb 2008

A numerical study has been performed to investigate the soot emission from a high-speed single-cylinder direct injection diesel engine. It was shown that the current KIVA CFD code with the standard evaporation model could predict the experimental trend, where at a low speed running condition a higher smoke reading is reached when increasing the injector protrusion into the piston chamber and conversely a lower smoke reading was recorded for the same change in injector protrusion at a high running speed condition. Evidence of inappropriate air/fuel mixing was seen via rates ofheat release analyses, especially in the high-speed conditions.

Efforts to reduce this discrepancy by way of improvements to the KIVA breakup and evaporation models were made. Results of the modified models showed improvements in the vapor dispersion of the atomizing liquid jet, thus affecting the mixing rates and predicted smoke emissions.

StyleCam: Interactive stylized 3D navigation using integrated spatial and temporal controls

Wed, 30 Jan 2008

This paper describes StyleCam, an approach for authoring 3D viewing experiences that incorporate stylistic elements that are not available in typical 3D viewers. A key aspect of StyleCam is that it allows the author to significantly tailor what the user sees and when they see it. The resulting viewing experience can approach the visual richness and pacing of highly authored visual content such as television commercials or feature films. At the same time, StyleCam allows for a satisfying level of interactivity while avoiding the problems inherent in using unconstrained camera models.

The main components of StyleCam are camera surfaces which spatially constrain the viewing camera; animation clips that allow for visually appealing transitions between different camera surfaces; and a simple, unified, interaction technique that permits the user to seamlessly and continuously move between spatial-control of the camera and temporal-control of the animated transitions.

Further, the user’s focus of attention is always kept on the content, and not on extraneous interface widgets. In addition to describing the conceptual model of StyleCam, its current implementation, and an example authored experience, we also present the results of an evaluation involving real users.

Cylinder Pressure-Based Control of Pre-Mixed Diesel Combustion

Fri, 25 Jan 2008

Implementation of real-time combustion feedback for use in closed-loop combustion control is a technology that has potential to assist in the successful production implementation of advanced diesel combustion modes. Low-temperature, pre-mixed diesel combustion is presently of interest because it offers the ability to lower the engine-out emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM). The need for lowering these two emissions is driven by tighter regulations enacted worldwide, especially the NOx limits in the United States. Reducing engine-out emissions eases the need for additional exhaust aftertreatment devices and their associated cost and mass.

In this paper we will describe an experimental cylinder pressure-based control system and present both steadystate and transient results from a diesel engine employing a pre-mixed type of combustion. Data are presented showing engine operation with the control system enabled and disabled, highlighting the control effectiveness of the real-time cylinder pressure feedback.

Quantitative Characterization of Near-Field Fuel Sprays by Multi-Orifice Direct Injection Using Ultrafast X-Tomography Technique

Fri, 18 Jan 2008

A low-pressure direct injection fuel system for spark ignition direct injection engines engines has been developed, in which a high-turbulence nozzle technology was employed to achieve fine fuel droplet size at a low injection pressure around 2 MPa. It is particularly important to study spray characteristics in the nearnozzle region due to the immediate liquid breakup at the nozzle exit.

By using an ultrafast x-ray area detector and intense synchrotron x-ray beams, the interior structure and dynamics of the direct injection gasoline sprays from a multi-orifice turbulence-assisted nozzle were elucidated for the first time in a highly quantitative manner with μs-temporal resolution.

Revealed by a newly developed, ultrafast computed x-microtomography technique, many detailed features associated with the transient liquid flows are readily observable in the reconstructed spray. Furthermore, an accurate 3-dimensional fuel density distribution, in the form of fuel volume fraction, was obtained by the time-resolved computed tomography.

The time-dependent fuel density distribution revealed that the fuel jet is well broken up immediately at the nozzle exits.

These results not only reveal the near-field characteristics of the partial atomized fuel sprays with unprecedented detail, but also facilitate the development of an advanced multi-orifice direct injector. This ultrafast tomography capability also will facilitate the realistic computational fluid dynamic simulations in highly transient and multiphase fuel spray systems.

Cutting-Edge Automotive Design

Mon, 07 Jan 2008

Interactive immersive virtualization, enabled by motion-tracking sensors, is overhauling the automotive design process by reducing design time and time to market.

Roberto Giolito: progettista e designer advanced

Fri, 04 Jan 2008

Gino Finizio incontra Roberto Giolito di Advanced Design Fiat Auto, luogo magico nel quale si respira aria di rinnovamento, di ricerca e di progetto. Quali i veicoli del futuro? Quali le sinergie tra uomo e città? Quali le nuove energie progettuali?

Gino Finizio meets Roberto Giolito, designer at Advanced Design Fiat Auto, a magical place where there is a breath of renewal, research and design. What are the vehicles for the future? Which synergies between man and city? Which creative energies?

Interview with Giorgetto Giugiaro

Thu, 03 Jan 2008

Giorgetto Giugiaro was born on 1938 in Garessio (Cuneo), north west Italy. His father was a painter and his grandfather was a church painter. After moving to Turin, he switched between art, and technical design.

At 17, he started working at the Fiat styling center. [...]

Seat: designing for the future

Thu, 29 Nov 2007

Does a new design studio mark a change in direction for Seat?

In the lobby of the new Seat Design Centre is a quote from the CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs. It says: 'Walk the talk. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.'

It's a great quote from a maverick business genius and the kind of inspirational bon mots you often find in a creative environment - although whether it's the kind of philosophy that a car company should be encouraging, especially in the uncertain times the industry is currently experiencing, is questionable. However, when you know that this is Luc Donckerwolke's new home, it makes a kind of sense.