World’s Top Stylists Have Designs On London
LONDON has reinforced its status as a style and design centre by playing host to some of the top design teams from international vehicle manufacturers.
The UK, and particularly its capital, is home to some of the top automotive designers in the world, and some of the biggest car brands have design centres in the city.
London is recognised as a global leader in the creative industries, with major new and existing investors being attracted by the investment opportunities presented by the city’s predicted economic growth of 80 billion dollars by 2012.
Japan and Korea, for example, home to many renowned automotive as well as electronic brands, have produced a range of products synonymous with quality, reliability and design ingenuity.
Many of these products are designed in London. Nissan and Samsung are just two such companies who have chosen to take advantage of the UK’s world-class creative talent and locate their product design centres in the UK capital.
Nissan Automotive has its European design headquarters in Paddington, central London. This state-of-the-art studio houses 60 international designers, modellers and support staff who work on projects for European and global markets.
Samsung, the world’s second largest electronics group creates products from home appliances to television and multimedia at its Design Centre at Clerkenwell, central London.
Both chose London because of language, ease of communication and the wealth of skilled talent available in the capital. With the UK market for design-related activity estimated to exceed 40 billion dollars annually, the creative industries sector in London employs more than half a million people and creates one in five of all jobs in London.
Meanwhile, top car stylists from around the world were invited to Auto Design Night ahead of the 2008 British International Motor Show, networking with representatives from the Design Council, Think London and the Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform. They were joined by leading figures from UK universities that specialise in automotive design.
Kirsty Perkinson, the British International Motor Show’s marketing director, said: “The status of the show attracts the biggest automotive brands in the world, including some with global premieres, so it is fitting that the designers penning these vehicles should congregate here.”
The UK has long enjoyed a reputation for top car designers, from the late great Geoff Lawson, responsible for many iconic designs at Jaguar Cars, to many other established and rising talents.
For example, the Saab Aero X, was designed in Sweden by British designer Alex Daniels under the direction of Anthony Lo, head of Advanced Design at Saab, and Bryan Nesbitt, executive director of GM Europe Design.
Martin Smith is a UK designer who has had much to do with the direction of Ford design. Few in Europe have done more to demonstrate the breadth of the modern car designer’s role.
Volvo Car Corporation appointed UK designer Steve Mattin as vice-president and design director, following a long career at DaimlerChrysler. Mattin was born in Bedford, England, in 1964 and graduated from Coventry University in 1987 with a bachelor of arts (BA) degree in transport design. In 1997, he was named Designer Of The Year by Autocar magazine.
Another pioneer is UK designer Mark Lloyd who took Concept Car Of The Year and Designer Of The Year titles from Autocar magazine for Citroën’s innovative C-concepts. Educated at Sevenoaks School, Cambridge University and the Royal College of Art in London, Lloyd joined in Citroën 1989.
Meanwhile, London’s melting pot makes an ideal location for crafting a new car.
When a car company thinks lean, it is usually about manufacturing - how to make more for less. But when car designers think lean, they are thinking of something entirely different which is how Nissan Design Europe’s design director Stephane Schwarz happened on a striking sculptural flourish for the company’s new Qashqai compact crossover.
He was at home in his London flat, musing over the meaning of “lean”, prompting thoughts of the tensioned limbs of athletes. And that was the inspiration that produced the “bone-line” that is such a distinctive styling feature of the Qashqai, creating a graphic signature that is echoed by the twin bulges in the bonnet.
Schwarz’s home might have been an incubator for the occasional idea - “a non-professional environment can be inspirational because you’re uninterrupted and can get to the essence more quickly”- but much of the Qashqai was crafted in a former British Rail maintenance depot in Paddington.
It is the home of Nissan’s European design studio, an ideal birthplace, reckons Schwarz, for a car he describes as an urban nomad.
“It is a car of contrasts for a world of contrasts,” he said. “Tough and compact for the city but sleek and agile for journeys away from the town. It reflects our personalities, our imagination.”
In other words, the Qashqai has drawn on multicultural London for its inspiration - it is, after all, a European car, created for European buyers.
Caption: Designs on glamour: Aston Martin and UK fashion designer Amanda Wakeley embarked on a recent collaboration for iconic cars and beautiful clothes. Wakeley, who launched her signature label in 1990 and is the winner of several awards including three British Fashion Awards for Glamour, said: “Style, luxury, superb craftsmanship and the use of only the best materials are values we share.”
世界顶级设计师在伦敦进行创作
伦敦正在招待来自国际汽车制造商的设计团队，从而加固了其作为时尚和设计中心的地位。
英国，尤其是它的首都伦敦，是世界上许多车辆设计师的家园，一些最著名的车辆品牌都在伦敦设有设计中心。
伦敦被认为是创意产业的全球领袖，据预测2012年时伦敦的经济增长会达到800亿英镑，所以一些原有和新增的重要投资者就受到了由此带来的投资机会的吸引。
举例来说，日本和韩国拥有许多知名汽车和电子品牌，但却生产了一系列在质量、可靠性和设计创意上相类似的产品。
这些产品有许多都是在伦敦设计的。许多日韩公司都利用了英国世界级的创意人才优势，并把它们的产品设计中心设在伦敦，日产和三星就是其中两个。
日产汽车把它的欧洲设计总部设在了位于伦敦中心位置的帕丁顿。在这个先进的设计中心里，有60名来自国际的设计师、模型师和支持人员，他们共同为公司的欧洲和全球市场项目工作。
世界第二大电子集团三星公司在位于伦敦中心地区的克拉肯威尔设计中心（Clerkenwell,）设计家用电器、电视机、多媒体设备等产品。
两家公司都选择了伦敦的原因之一是这里的语言环境利于交流，再一个是首都具有技能型人才资源。在英国市场上，每年与设计相关的活动所产生的价值估计超过了400亿美元，伦敦的创意产业部门雇佣的员工人数超过了50万，在伦敦创造的职位占到总量的五分之一。
同时，世界各地的顶级汽车设计师都被邀请参加于 “2008年英国国际汽车展”之前举办的“汽车设计之夜”（ Auto Design Night），与来自英国设计协会（Design Council）、伦敦投资局和英国商业、企业与制度改革部的代表们交流。英国大学专门研究汽车设计的知名人士也参加了交流。
“英国国际汽车展”市场总监Kirsty Perkinson说：“车展本身的名气吸引了全球最大的汽车品牌制造商们，其中还包括一些全球首次亮相的款式，所以设计了这些车辆的设计师们应该也适合聚集在这里。”
从为捷豹汽车公司设计了多款车型的已故设计师Geoff Lawson，到许多已经建立起自己的声望或正在成长中的设计师们，长期以来，英国都有层出不穷的顶级汽车设计师人才。
比如，在萨博（Saab）高级设计部主任Anthony Lo以及通用汽车欧洲设计部执行主任Bryan Nesbitt的指导下，英国设计师Alex Daniels在瑞典设计了Saab Aero X车。
Martin Smith是一名英国设计师，他与福特的设计方向有着很大的关系。欧洲的一些设计师做了很多来证明现代汽车设计师的角色范围。
沃尔沃汽车公司指定英国设计师Steve Mattin为其副总裁兼设计总监，此前Steve Mattin已在戴姆勒-克莱斯勒公司任职很长时间。1964年，Mattin出生英格兰的贝德福德，1987年他从考文垂大学毕业，获运输设计文学士学位。1997年，他被《Autocar 》杂志评为“年度设计师”。
另一位前辈是英国设计师Mark Lloyd，他因雪铁龙的创新C概念获得《Autocar》杂志 “年度概念车”和“年度设计师”两项殊荣。Lloyd曾先后在七橡树中学（Sevenoaks School）、剑桥大学和伦敦皇家艺术学院学习，1989年加入雪铁龙公司。
同时，伦敦这个大熔炉也正是制造新车的理想地点。
当一家汽车公司有所偏好时——通常是在制造上，考虑的是如何做到事半功倍。但是当设计师的想法有所偏好时，他们会考虑一些完全不同的东西，这正是日产欧洲设计部设计主任Stephane Schwarz能够为公司设计出逍客（Qashqai）紧凑跨界（compact crossover）新车型的原因，这是一款引人注目的车，雕刻般的车型，动感十足。
他呆在自己位于伦敦一所公寓的家里，冥想“偏好”的含义，想到了运动员发力时紧绷的四肢。于是有了生产“骨线” 的灵感—— 成就了逍客与众不同的式样风格，并创作了在发动机罩的双突起中也使用到了的图形签名。
Schwarz的家也许可以称得上是瞬间灵感的摇篮——“一个非工作空间可以激发灵感，因为你不会受到打扰，从而可以更加快速地弄清本质”，不过逍客的设计绝大部分还是在帕丁顿前英国铁路公司的养护修配厂进行的。
这里是日产欧洲设计中心的所在地，对Schwarz来说这里是这款被他称为“城市流浪者”车型的理想诞生地。
他说：“在这个对照鲜明的世界里，它显得如此与众不同。在城市中驾驶，它是那么强壮紧凑，而在村镇旅途中，它又是那么的时尚敏捷。它既能反映我们的个性，又能突出我们的想象力。”
换句话说，逍客的设计灵感中利用到了伦敦的多文化特点——毕竟它是为欧洲消费者设计的一款欧洲车型。
说明：设计出魅力：Aston Martin 和英国时尚设计师Amanda Wakeley在最近的一项概念车和漂亮服饰合作中携手。Wakeley1990年设立了自己的商标品牌，而且曾获得数个奖项，其中三次获得“英国魅力时尚大奖” ，他说：“风格、奢华、精良的做工以及仅使用最好的材料是我们共享的价值。”
