Design Talks

Observations on design

Best car designs of 2018: Luxury, clean, autonomous

Posted on January 1, 2019 by Nargess

It has been an interesting year for the motor car as the auto world navigates the post-petrol age. Whereas sustainable driving used to mean compromising on style and performance – think the awkward-looking G-Wiz – it appears we need not lose much, if anything, from the golden age of the motor car. As it happens, electric cars are an awful lot of fun to drive and the new mechanics allow for a great deal of creative imagination. Here are my top car designs of 2018.

Driving towards the progressive future

Posted on August 26, 2018 by Nargess

This is an exciting time to be involved in the car industry. As the new chapter in the story of the automobile unfolds, it faces and, to some extent, embraces fundamental changes. Despite some cynicism and a degree of denial amongst hard-edge traditionalists, changes are happening and the general reaction is positive.

It is hard not to find parallels with the murky world of today’s politics where progressive ideas are also shunned by those who cling to the imaginary glories of the past, and where liberal thinking is mocked by a tribe terrified of change.

Change has been slow though and possibly less revolutionary than many of us had hoped, Then, perhaps some of these more avant-garde concepts – much broader urban planning and speculative design and progressive global ideas – will find platforms once the early stages of sustainable mobility settle and consumers ease into new ways of moving about.

This is especially the case with car design. Designers seem to be hesitant about really challenging the visual language of conventional cars. New infrastructures and advanced materials and manufacturing have freed creatives to rethink the motor car vernacular. The first wave of e-cars show some of these possibilities, but the creative work so far has not been revolutionary.

Most seem to be tip-toeing around the subject and not letting go of the past. The handful of notable electric cars today have maintained the essential car shape with a touch of futurism. There is still much more to be explored and it is up to companies, to management, to push the creatives to be bolder. That is not to completely dismiss the first wave of clean-powered production cars – the latest BMW i8 Roadster and Jaguar I-Pace are notably impressive.

It is with the latest concept cars a more daring approach seems to be brewing. Last week a few really exciting ecological studies were revealed at Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in California. Many are being steered by new car brands. This is not entirely surprising though. The likes of Tesla or Automobili Pininfarina or Byton don’t have the constraints of traditional car manufacturers and so they can work on smaller scale productions and take bigger risks.

Infiniti, Nissan’s premium arm, has rebranded itself as an electric carmaker with some brilliant ideas in the pipeline including the Prototype 10 concept shown today at Pebble Beach. Elsewhere, I’m excited to see the PF0 electric hypercar by Automobili Pininfarina in the flesh when the company produces 150 of these by 2020.

These are all lovingly-crafted, fast cars offering a great deal of scope for personalisation. One thing seems to be clear, neither the traditional or the new boutique eco carmakers are asking consumers to compromise in the new age of progressive driving.

Electrification: A conversation with Ian Callum

Posted on March 25, 2018 by Nargess

As Jaguar reveals the I-Pace pure electric car at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show, I sit down with the marque’s creative director Ian Callum to discuss the challenges he faced designing a sustainable product, and the excitement of creating a family of electric cars with a distinctively Jaguar flavour.

Read the full interview here

What is luxury? Jaguar design director discusses

Posted on November 29, 2015 by Nargess

The idea of luxury has evolved to include a much more complex set of values. Time, authenticity, legacy, access, resource, journey, skills and memory – these are just some of the concepts joining the more classic terms associated with luxury. And going forward, when the car becomes essentially a high-tech gadget in the age of autonomous driving, what will define true luxury? In the second of our interviews with some of the leading creatives, Ian Callum, Jaguar Cars design director, offers his thoughts on the subject.

Design Talks. How would you define modern luxury?

Ian Callum: One aspect of modern luxury is appreciating old world luxury, to understand the essence of authentic materials, noticing and understanding the value of these, understanding the pleasures it gives rather than the ostentatiousness of it.

As car designers our job is to understand our occupants’ emotional and physical needs, and to respond to this. We therefore use this word wellbeing a lot in our design process. To create a sense of real luxury is to essentially give a sense of wellbeing, to create an environment where our customers enjoy the experience, much like you would in a great restaurant or a modern hotel. It means forming a sanctuary. It certainly isn’t about showing off their wealth.

DT. How does this apply to Jaguar design?

IC. What this means in terms of Jaguar cars is a more exciting and involved environment in our sports cars like the F-Type, and a more comfortable and luxurious one in cars like the XJ. It means experimenting and investing in perfumes, smells, ambience lighting. It means looking into new luxury materials.

DT. How do you see this being unique to the marque?

IC. Jaguars are exotic cars, and people buy our cars because they are exciting. But part of this means taking up space so for us it is a case of balancing the exciting with the comfort. So our first priority is the packaging of the vehicle, the physical side of it – the very makeup of comfort, seat value, versatile occupant sitting space…

We then look at ambiance by simplifying the visual architecture. Forms and shapes need to be easily understood, but not be cold. And we offer choice – for a modern twist carbon, and warmer textures such as wood, leather and even cashmere, which we’re working on, to create a sense of softness in the future. We need to see beyond the immediate needs of our customer.

DT. How does technology fit into this?

IC. Beyond this are technology and connectivity, and the visual and verbal connections. The infotainment system has to be as sophisticated as any modern luxury living space. Sound is very important to a British brand, a great quality sound system, and for us it means working with technology companies like Meridian who share our values.

DT. There is usually an element of surprise in your cars, such as the gear leaver in the XJ that pops up when the engine turns on for a sense of theatre…

IC. Yes, Jaguar cars need to offer a little sense of fun, tongue-in-cheek humour and a bit of theatre – if the customer gets it, then brilliant and if not, it doesn’t really matter! We’re doing different surfaces and patterns, which you’ll discover, perhaps hidden in the glove box. The idea is to make people smile.

DT. How do you see the future of luxury car design in the context of driverless cars?

IC. Honestly I don’t know yet! But the first stage will be semi-driverless cars where the driver has the option to let the car be piloted autonomously. All this would mean at this stage is that the infotainment system used by other occupants can extend to the driver. But for safety reasons occupants will still need to be seated [traditionally] and strapped in.

However, for the time being electric cars offer huge possibilities in terms of the architecture of the car for more interior space. Space is increasingly luxury and this is something that we’re working on at the moment.

Nargess Banks

Read our interview on the subject of modern luxury and car design here.

Design review: New Jaguar XF

Posted on August 18, 2015 by Nargess

Jaguar was in the process of reinvention when design director Ian Callum sketched his first XF in 2007. It was to be an entry-level car, attracting new customers and debuting the marque’s new design.

The sporty coupé body was an unusual proposition for premium business car at the time, as was the bold interior design. It grabbed our attention and succeeded in presenting a new, confident Jaguar brand. Now, and with a small XE in production and a family of cars that include the F-Type sports car and F-Pace crossover in the horizon, it was time for a new XF.

The base of this second-generation model is Jaguar’s lightweight modular architecture. The design team worked closely with engineering to harness this and conceive a car that is lighter yet stiffer, highly aerodynamic, more compact in proportion yet roomier inside.

So at 4,954mm long; the car is 7mm shorter and 3mm lower than the previous model, yet the shorter front overhang and stretched wheelbase has allowed for 15mm more legroom and up to 27mm more headroom. The XF boasts exceptionally low aero drag of 0.26cd, achieved through a range of interesting design tweaks.

Furthermore, the fusion of light aluminium for the body panel, and a mix of high strength steel in key structural areas, means the car is now stiffer and lighter by some 190kg than the previous car for a much smoother ride as we were to discover on the Circuito de Navarra and the Navarran Pyrenees where we put the car to the test.

This expansive and hugely dramatic landscape in northern Spain can instigate a compelling story for most vehicles, yet the XF, though essentially a business car destined for less exotic locations of urban settings and motorways, almost ‘owned’ these empty roads that snake high into the lush green uplands.

In terms of design, the XF is very much an evolutionary one that continues exploring the distinct silhouette of the original model whilst introducing a more vertical assertive mesh grille, shorter front overhang and the distinctive power bulge that now runs all the way up the elegant long bonnet.

Callum points to the waistline which sits at a more horizontal level now, ‘the strongest element of this car visually,’ he calls it. ‘We’ve worked very hard to create a shoulder line that is much more elegant, stronger yet relaxed in many ways sitting underneath the window graphic of the car,’ he says explaining how it ties the whole car together.

There are extra rear windows, which, coupled with the optional panoramic sunroof, really improves the feeling of spaciousness at the cabin. The car’s behind has also been given a distinctive look with an interpretation of the LED tail lights first featured on the recent F-Type, replete with a rather lovely chiselled boot line, thus creating a narrative between the siblings.

The brief for interior design was to retain the sense of theatre introduced in the original XF but improve the materials and textures so that it evidently sits above the entry-level XE. The layered instrument panel now swoops the width of the car merging into the doors emphasised by singular stitching and it featuring the XJ signature Riva Hoop design.

This is a hugely connected car too, digital yet at the same time offering high levels of quality and craftsmanship and plenty of tactile surfaces – soft leather, warm wood and shinny chrome elements. There is a reconfigurable TFT instrument cluster, a 10.2-inch touch screen containing all the infotainment and entertainment information, and laser head-up display for convenient navigation.

‘One of the things that is great about the interior is the theatre of it,’ muses Callum. So the rotary shift control and air vents magically spin open when you turn on the engine. ‘It’s a wonderful moment when they spin up to say hello to you. It gives you that sense of occasion.’

With the XF, Jaguar has shown that it can propose an alternative in an otherwise crowded and often conservative executive car market. This product is a perfect blend – infusing elements of the marque’s sports car knowhow with sprinkles of quirkiness for that added bit of magic.

Nargess Shahmanesh Banks

The new Jaguar XF is on sale from September.

Read our previous articles on Jaguar.