Hasta La Ideas

See Mini’s LED-lit concept car’s dual-hinged doors and drawer trunk in our video

Making a good thing better is hard enough, but making a small thing smaller may be even trickier.
Mini invited us to see how they did both when yesterday in Milan they unveiled their new concept car Rocketman, a forward-thinking ride with features that suggest not just a future of more compact cars, but one that boldly uses materials, lighting and other features.

Lit entirely with LEDs, the all-glass roof (also embedded with LEDs) makes for a glittering look, accented by the carbon-fiber body, which also lends fuel-efficiency. Its diminutive size, measuring just over three meters and seating three, is geared for urban markets and, perhaps most impressively saves space with a sliding drawer-style trunk, that can be left open for toting snowboards or other bulky items. Hinged doors make squeezing into tight parking spaces easy and allow passengers to get in the reat seat without too much trouble.

We caught up with BMW design head Adrian van Hooydonk at dinner and learned all about the Rocketman’s spirit animal, his predictions for car design’s future and more.

Is there a danger of being too cute with Mini?

The lines are more crisp and taut on this concept, because we feel that a Mini should always be like a friend, let’s say. But if it becomes too cute, than maybe people will see it like a toy, a teddy bear. Of course we like to appeal to young customers, but Mini traditionally is a car that appealed to people of all ages, cross-gender and all around the world.

The elements in this car, we believe are elements that could do that: keep Mini exciting, interesting fun, endearing, but also something to be reckoned with, also serious. Almost like a British bulldog—a small dog, but people take it seriously.

What are the challenges of designing small?

On a big car, it’s easy to make things move, do a door opening or a trunk. On a small car, it’s much, much harder. But exactly what Mini stands for, right from the very beginning, is being clever in a small space. And this car is full of ideas for a small space. The way the trunk opens, the original Mini had that too. In a tight parking spot, if a car is parked behind your Mini, you can still open this trunk and put your stuff in. Or the side doors, they have a double hinge that allows you to open the door, even when there’s another car parked right next to you.

How much less room does the door need?

I would say one-third, if you have to put a number to it. The Mini has quite a long door, because it’s a four-seater but a two-door car. If you open it with one hinge, you hit the other door and then you have to sort of squeeze in. With the Rocketman, we solved both issues. You can crawl in the back because the door’s quite long, but you don’t have to squeeze in through a narrow opening because of the double hinge.

That’s actually why we called the car Rocketman. On the one hand, Rocketman sounds like a brave little guy—and Mini is that, a brave little guy. But this car to us is so full of ideas, that we thought it’s rocket science by Mini. That’s why we call it Rocketman.

How did you treat the interiors for this car?

Of course we are dealing with a small car, but as a designer you can do a lot to give the feeling or the sensation of more space. We did this in the Rocketman in the sense that there is no dashboard like we know it today.

The dashboard takes up a lot of space. In the old Mini there was only a steering wheel and one big dial, and that’s what we’ve done in this Rocketman as well. But the steering wheel and the big round center dial have grown together into a structure. And then the rest of the dashboard is gone, you don’t need it.

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The lighting is another feature which I believe can do a lot to create a very nice atmosphere, even in a small space. We’ve played with that a lot in the car, and we believe that the light or the light color in the future is going to play a bigger role in the whole color and material set up of the car. Right now the light is treated very separately from the materials that we use in the car, and in this concept we made it an integral part. We thought about it from the beginning, it could light up in red or blue or some other colors.

You could customize to your mood, which is something that Mini offers today. There’s just one or two LEDs in the Mini interiors today so you can change the color seamlessly from orange to blue. But in this car now, there’s big surfaces of light. And the roof of course is transparent which is another element that increases your sensation of spaciousness.

What other examples of industrial design inspired the car?

We’re constantly not just looking at other fields of design, like industrial design, furniture design or fashion design, we also have a part of our team—actually a large part of our team located in California—called Design Works. And this design consultancy, we do industrial design for other companies as well. We are actually in touch with other industries, like aircraft industry, or boating. We design airplane interiors or boats exteriors and interiors.

And you always learn, so as a designer you become more creative the more you work on different types of products, or design problems. LED light is something that is coming anyway, also in furniture, also in housing. It is simply very small, it uses less energy.

It led to a whole creative outburst, because now we can position these lights in places where in the past a lightbulb would have to go in and there wouldn’t be the space. Without LED we couldn’t have done this roof or the illumination of the door panels, or the tail lamps where the air can pass through. It wouldn’t be possible.

What about the headlights?

In the headlamps, the way we use LED is we would like to make the light in a way that is soft and homogenous. We don’t like to see the dots actually, because we think it’s a little bit too bright, a little bit too cold. And we want to have the light be somewhat soft and warm.

What are the features you think are most likely to go to market?

When you’ve just presented a concept car that’s meant to go very far in the future, then that’s probably the toughest question to ask. But, the lighting ideas for sure. I would say things like the hinges, or the way the trunk works. This would be possible to put in production.

Also a lot of the surface features, the design the ideas, the form ideas we’ve put in the car, both in the interior and the exterior. I can see a lot of potential in using those because that is not necessarily technically difficult. That’s just a matter of seeing how it was received—judging by tonight that was good but let’s see if the broader audience in Geneva sees the car.

And this was also deliberate. If people see this car as part of what could be Mini, then we have just broadened our palette. We’ve just given ourselves more room to play. Because Mini has such a strong history, such a strong heritage in one car. Of course everything gravitates towards this one original car. Does it look like that car or does it not? I think this concept car will help us widen the palette a little bit, which I think is necessary to develop the brand into the future.

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Dernier spot pour le constructeur Audi et son modèle l’Audi A8 autour du thème du luxe. Une mise en scène entre humour et esthétisme. Une production Epoch Films, et un travail de l’agence Venables Bell & Partners qui a signé dernièrement la campagne Intel – The Chase.

Previously on Fubiz

• Castillo Caribe Residence
• Intel – The Chase
• The Beauty of Pixar

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Ford’s new all-electric Focus and their Chief Creative Officer on thinking globally and making drivers happy

Ford’s revival continues with today’s launch of the electric-only Focus at CES—heralding both the latest in Ford’s technical innovations and bucking traditional auto show debuts. We got a sneak peak last night of the new model (arriving in showrooms fall 2011) and learned about the advancements in charging that come with it. The new vehicle charges in just over three hours, about twice as fast as the Nissan Leaf, and a smart charging feature allows users to leverage fluctuations in electricity pricing by programming when they want to charge. With the new Focus, an updated version of MyFord Touch
includes electric-only features, and a companion mobile app will help monitor the car’s status and performance.

These progressive tech developments—reflections of the brand’s understanding that people and their technology evolve much more quickly than traditional auto design cycles do—are part of a series of continued enhancements by Ford allowing drivers to control the car and their mobile apps through MyFord Touch
and Ford Sync AppLink. (These features are currently available on the 2011 Focus and coming next on the 2012 Mustang, which will also offer voice-activated navigation.)

To learn more about the role of design within Ford’s corporate and product evolution we sat down with J Mays, Group Vice President of Global Design and Chief Creative Officer, during the Paris auto show. He shared his thoughts on how the brand is moving forward.

Tell us about designing for a global market.

For years, Americans just didn’t buy five-door cars, because they only liked four-doors. And Europeans only like five-doors.

As we started to launch the Fiesta (and we’re getting the same feedback on the Focus), it turns out that new four-door, designed primarily for Asia Pacific and the United States, is getting a lot of attention in Europe. Just the opposite is happening in the U.S. We designed a four-door for the American and age-specific market, and suddenly everybody is going, “Yeah, but actually the five-door is really cool and I’d like that.” That’s a real cultural shift that has to do with a different generation, one that’s getting their information off the Internet. Everybody just wants the best design.

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.

How does this impact your customers?

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.

How has this shift affected your job?

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.

What does this mean for Ford’s many regional design centers?

We’re not Ford of Europe design anymore. We’re not Ford U.S. design. We’re just Ford global design because—this sounds a bit stupid—but we’re a small enough company that we can get away with that now.

How has technology facilitated that global design process?

Read more of the interview after the jump.

It’s just one more tool. Most of us in leadership positions in design at Ford have come out of university at a time when there wasn’t any such thing as PowerWalls or even two dimensional or three dimensional design. We’ve easily made the transition, but probably what it does more than anything is allow us to speed up the development process.

What is the number one problem you look to solve designing for the global market?

Making people happy. What we’re constantly looking for is that thing that will make people say “I want a Ford because I hear they’re fun to drive.” There’s the mechanical side of it; they have to be better handling cars with great quality, fast engines, great fuel economy and super aerodynamics. But that’s just kind of what you have to do to be able to be a producer of automobiles. To sell something and make a brand that’s got long-term sustainability, you’ve got to have something that brings people back time and time again.

Has what and how you hear from consumers helped the design process?

Our understanding of the kind of questions we should be asking the consumer has changed, because a contingency within Ford five or six years ago said the customer is the most important thing. And I would go, “Yeah, the right customer is.” So we’re customer-informed, but we’re not customer-driven. We have to know who our customer is, but we’re brand driven. We know our cars are fun to drive, they’re going to look fun to drive, feel fun to drive, smell fun to drive, and the customer that we need and the customer we want to sell to wants to be looking for a car that fulfills that criteria as well.

(Let me) use the Fiesta as an example. We’ve now sold over a million of them, and if you look at it compared to the last generation Fiesta, that’s about a 50% improvement. We were going to sell it to this fictitious 23-year-old Italian woman named Antonella. We laid out the entire sort of cultural map of who Antonella was. We knew she lived with her parents, we knew she liked style, we knew all the things that were important to her. That’s the customer-informed side of it and you overlay that with the fun to drive part. Fun to drive doesn’t mean in the BMW, “ultimate driving machine” way; it means what are the elements that for Antonella makes this car fun to drive.

What role does design play within the company?

Right at the top. If you look at the programs that we released—from Fiesta to Focus to what will be the new Mondeo, in fact the current Mondeo—if you judge those against the competition, we’ve got design leadership in every one of them.

Has the role of design kind of shifted at all?

I think where we are—and I credit Jim Farley—we have great brand focus so we know who we are as a brand now. I’ve been with the company now 12 years and I’d say for six of those twelve years we weren’t quite sure. We were some things in the U.S., we were a slightly different thing in Europe.

Engineering is there not for us to make it less ugly. Engineering is there to help us design and deliver the brand message. We use design as a communication tool to convey a message to the customer, whatever that message may be. So engineering helps us as a means to an end to deliver that. But design we consistently say is going to always have a leadership position.

I haven’t driven a lot of Fords in the last several years, I was surprised how much I enjoyed driving them.

It’s shocking to most people, I think. I arrived at Ford in ’97 and said at the time, based on my Audi experience, I said this is going to definitely take us 10 to 12 years before we can turn this brand around. And it’s turned around for completely different reasons than I thought it would. Had we not had the financial crisis of 2008, the Toyota meltdown and all these other problems, it would not have had Americans in particular scratching their head and going “Gee, maybe I should have another look at Ford.” Everybody was really happy that we didn’t take a loan from the U.S. government, and it was any number of things that got us on their list to possibly look at. But once they got into the car they were like “Wow, these are really good cars!” So that was the big surprise. What we’ve done now at Ford, through a combination of product and sort of big cultural change, is that we’ve gotten on the shopping list. And now we’ve got to just start ratcheting it up, but we feel pretty confident about that.

America’s biggest antiques show, handmade instruments plus artisan cars, beds and chocolate from our favorite videos of 2010

Another great year for Cool Hunting Video, 2010 saw a cast of fantastic characters from Brooklyn to Bristol. While each video is its own compelling story, some of our personal favorites are highlighted below.

Micachu and the Shapes

We got an inside look at how British musician Micachu makes her instruments and her music with The Shapes. Their hands-on approach and experimental nature brought this piece to life, not to mention their irresistible charm.

Hästens

The quality and process of the Hästens mattress production was fantastic enough in itself to merit a video, but we quickly discovered that the dedicated group of people behind the scenes are as equally intriguing as their product.

Mast Brothers

Friends and now chocolate collaborators, the Mast Brothers gave us a walk-through of their delectable factory. Their unique process and philosophy make these siblings stand out in the chocolate world and we hope to work on more delicious projects with them in 2011.

Bristol Cars

We went to London’s Kensington area to check out where and how Bristol makes their luxurious cars. The experience made it clear why driving a hand-built custom car has its perks—the beauty in the design and thought that goes into each instant classic was a reminder of how much work it takes to stay classy.

Brimfield Dealers

At Brimfield we found a perfect slice of Americana. The items varied as widely as the people, but both were definitely worth getting to know. In our video about the dealers we met a couple who had been selling collectibles for most of their adult lives, offering valuable insight on the market while expressing true love for what they do and serving as an inspiration to the eccentric in all of us.

Our behind-the-scenes look at the making of Aston Martin’s upcoming short films

Like many brands, where car manufacturers once relied on lifelong customers, changing market factors (globalization as a whole, the Internet, etc.) has empowered buyers to venture beyond local car lots to find an automobile that truly speaks to their needs and desires. While Aston Martin‘s reputation for luxurious motoring may be enough, at nearly a century old, the manufacturer hopes to engage a new generation of drivers with its series of interactive films centered around their new Rapide. (See the full story on the four-door sports car on CH here.)

To check out how Aston Martin’s Marketing Director Markus Kramer and his staff are creating something beyond a cliché TV commercial, I recently traveled on the brand’s invitation to Lisbon where the team was busy shooting the trio of 90-second videos. The creative mind behind the project, James Temple of digital agency R/GA explained that the genesis of the project is “True Power Should Be Shared,” with each film highlighting four people on a mission to deliver a time capsule from Lisbon to Zurich. Recognizing the limited amount of time the Aston Martin client has, the work aims to show how time is one of the most precious commodities today.

On set, there was some mystery as to how the narrative will develop, but I learned that the script is broken down into three separate stories which will launch in three segments beginning next month to make one complete short film come February 2011. To keep its audience fully engaged and interacting with the brand, Aston Martin placed clues throughout each film that can be cracked for a chance to win prizes associated with not only themselves, but the partner brands within the film.

Read more about my exciting behind-the-scenes experience after the jump, and see more images from the shoot in the gallery below.

The night shooting in central Lisbon covered a scene in which the four protagonists of the movie (all wearing Ozwald Boateng suits) are trapped in a small alley by two aggressive vehicles. Despite the cold and the rain, the atmosphere on the set was relaxed and the enthusiasm of the local and British crews (almost 60 people in total!) was high.

The second day brought us to Alges, where the scene featured a mysterious black helicopter performing impressive maneuvers under the vigilant eye of the “bomberos” (local firemen) and director Donnie Masters from Serious Pictures. After this we drove to the hills of Arrábida where the stunning ocean views and curvy streets promised intense performance from the Rapide.

From here I finally experienced the car first hand. In the back seat Steven Egan, General Manager Marketing Operations at Aston Martin, explained to me that what makes the car super special “is what it delivers to the driving performance, the feeling when you are one with the road—it’s a driver’s car.” Egan also touched on the practicality of the four-seater, but saying the car is still very emotive. “In the heart it’s still a sports car—everything is at your fingertips and you always feel in control of its power.” From a passenger’s point of view, it’s clear how the cocoon-like seats are designed to keep you feeling safe and molded to you, “like a hand that fits into the glove,” Steven states.

I also had the chance to take part into a small portion of the filming, with an experienced driver taking the Rapide to the limits in the small street of Arrábida, closed to the traffic. The roar of the engine, the quick accelerations and the sudden braking made me feel the true power and the possibilities of the car.

After this breathtakingly unique event, I got back to the base camp and spent some time with Donnie Masters. The director told me how happy he was with the process, revealing more details about the story. A meeting in a restaurant, a mission, a tunnel, martial arts, flashbacks and more set the tone. “It’s not going to be a dark film, but it will carry a tone of excitement, a dense atmosphere. The movie will find its natural length in less than 10 minutes. I want it to be long enough to enjoy, but not indulgent.”

Donnie has worked for years directing commercials for the automotive industry, but this time is a totally new and different approach. “Aston Martin should be making films like this” he says. “Because now they know they can do something more than classic car commercials. Here the car is the hero, but in a very humble way—we’ve got characters, story, wonderful dialogue by Sean Doyle—but still the car is the thread all the way through the film, in the same way it does with James Bond.”