The best new designs are now presented as part of a Design Philosophy

This year — over the last three months even — we have seen major new design debuts from Audi, from BMW, from Mercedes Benz, from Bentley, from Skoda and from others, presented as the centre-pieces of their brand’s new design philosophies. These new designs are presented as the manifestation and embodiment of their underpinning design philosophy more so than as stand-alone expressions, and this hasn’t happened before, certainly not on this scale and with this much substance within the philosophies.

Typically a new design was presented with little reference to how it stepped from its predecessors, connected to its siblings, or set out a new path for subsequence designs from the brand. These factors were likely considered by its designers, but generally they were footnotes not headlines to its story. And whilst recently some brands have developed Design philosophies — step forward Volvo, Kia, Rolls Royce, Mercedes Benz, Kia, Nio, Lexus, Lincoln, Mazda, Avatr amongst others — to-date they have rarely been closely coupled to the designs they purport to affect, tending to be presented in isolation, and being fairly abstract. Compounding the way that designs were rarely presented relative to their wider strategic function or to a design philosophy, quite often car brands’ design philosophies have been a little generic and hyperbolic, interchangeably using terms like: elegant; dynamic; pure; sophisticated; bold. Now though we are seeing the best design philosophies having a little more distinction, as well as being more closely connected to the designs they inform.

Bentley now has five principals for exterior design and five for interior design that are much in evidence in the EXP15 concept announced this summer along with the brand’s much progressed design philosophy. Whilst BMW are coy about publicly describing much about the new ‘design language’ of the iX3 — the first of the Neue Klasse models that cost €20b to develop — its major shift in exterior and exterior theme, and the way this is held up as the first of a roll-out in subsequent models, suggest that internally there is a design philosophy that goes further. Mercedes are similarly perhaps holding a little back from the outside world about the detail within then now long-established Sensual Purity that the new GLC EV shows has taken a new turn with classical grille and subtle but significant advances in interior design. New concepts from Skoda, Cadillac, Cupra and Volkswagen this summer also elude to deeper meaning and forthcoming impact in their design communications. But it is Audi that is the poster-child of how ‘the best new designs are now presented as part of a bigger thing’

The debut of the Concept C in Milan created a lot of noise in the design community for reasserting much missed Audi design qualities. But its greatest significance is how it stands as the manifestation of ‘The Radical Next’ design philosophy that Audi describes in headline form as: Clear; Technical; Intelligent; Emotional, and that is set to role out on all subsequent production Audi designs — ‘This is just the beginning’ says Audi.

Audi Design describe each of these four key pillars with imagery (see below) that manages the impossible task of delivering on both symbolic and literal meanings whilst also being consistent, and with the following texts:

Clear: Radical simplicity is at the heart of our approach. We achieve clarity by reducing everything to the essential. Until what remains is strong enough to withstand the future.

Technical: There is no excellence without precision. We push boundaries of technology and design. We explore new materials and technologies to open up new opportunities.

Intelligent: We go to extremes to break new ground. Probe at the edges of possibility. Intelligence helps us go further with less.

Emotional: The outcome of `The Radical Next´ must always be an emotion: understatement that takes the breath away.

Says Massimo Frascella, Chief Creative Officer at Audi: Through `The Radical Next´, everything we do will be unmistakably Audi. And this is just the beginning.

Concept C powerfully evidences The Radical Next Audi Design Philosophy, and the new Audi Design Philosophy truly empowers Concept C. Never before has a new design been presented so much as a statement of intent wedded to its brand’s new design philosophy.

So we have crested a tipping point with so many leading brands introducing new and stronger design philosophies closely connected to designs over the last three months. Those other brands without a design philosophy will now be more cognisant that they are missing something valuable – something that would:

• give them useful guidance during the design process

• be useful to help explain the merit of their new designs

• ensure that their latest designs are most powerfully delivering on what the business needs

• elevate the equity that design brings to the customer

Design Philosophies still have a long way to go — to reach all areas of automotive design (be less centric to exterior for language), to be more affecting, to reflect deeper true meaning from the brand, and to connect to a purpose that resonates with customers. But automotive design philosophies have come a long way from being a rare and superficial statement to now being the s design tool underpinning the best new designs of today. And with today’s leading new designs now presented as part of a wider brand specific design philosophy, there is no turning back.

* Car Design Research is unique in being an agency that has supported the Design Leadership of many of the world’s leading OEM car brands in the development of their design philosophies.