The automobile industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, specific attention is paid to the design of an automobile and the art of designing automobiles has a lot of science involved to it. The people working on the design of a car are called automotive engineers. Normally, these people hold degrees in industrial design or transportation design.
Developing the visual appearance and the overall aesthetics of the car is the major job criterion. It is further divided into exterior styling, interior styling and color and trim design. Exterior styling refers to the exterior shape, surfaces, proportions and the external design of the car. The instrumental panel, seats, doors, windows, dash board etc are fall under the broad category of interior styling. The color and trim design team is primarily responsible for researching, designing and developing all the colors and materials which will be used in the interior and exterior design of the vehicle. Often, these designs follow a particular theme or concept. With the advent of computers and technology, computer-aided design is used by graphic designers to design 3D models of cars.
Alfred P. Sloan Jr., the head of General Motors, referred to the strategy as dynamic obsolescence whereas critics slammed it as being planned obsolescence. Ford did not adopt this strategy and hence by 1931 General Motors outsold Ford. After that period the design of the car has acquired utmost importance in the eyes of a customer and car manufacturers constantly update models, even if the underlying function and design of the car remain the same.
When a powerful car is mentioned, the image of a sleek design with a low and wide base comes to the mind since many of the sports cars manufactured follow that general theme. Car manufactures are constantly looking for major innovation to cater to market differentiation. Concept cars are often produced as prototypes to judge the reaction of people. Many car manufacturers believe that a concept that lacks context is simply confusing so there is great interest in developing stories around concept cars to create popularity.
auto(r) is the biggest automotive design conference in Europe in 2009 and the first ever held in South East Europe (SEE). The conference theme: “Professional automotive designers from SEE”, born or originated. This is the first time ever that this subject has been taken to the public. A title auto(r) has been chosen because it combines two words – automobile and author. Our mission is to present designers as authors of automobile designs.
