Hasta La Ideas

Those of you running your own ID firms or working as freelancers know the recession’s been tough; you’ve probably submitted some obscenely low bids just to get work. But what was the impact of the economic crunch on a well-known designer near the top of a corporate structure, commanding an army of designers responsible for global product? CoolHunting’s got an interview up with J Mays, Ford’s Global Design Veep and Chief Creative Officer, and what he had to say was interesting. An excerpt:

J Mays: We’ve gone from being seven brands with 360,000 people in the company to two brands essentially–really one brand with a small domestic brand, Lincoln–with about 170,000 people. We’re not developing three Focuses anymore, we’re developing one.

…You can imagine the amount of money that we save there, it allows you to put more into the car that allows the customer to have surprise and delight.

…I used to describe my job as an inch deep and a mile wide because I’d just go around and sort of sprinkle fairy dust on stuff and never have time to really delve into it. Now that everybody is focusing on Ford globally, it allows me to be an inch wide and a mile deep.

The rest of the interview focuses on more meat-and-potatoes design questions, so be sure to check it out.

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