F r o m v i s i o n t o r e a l i t y

B M W G r o u p s u b s i d i a r y D e s i g n w o r k s U S A i s a c r e a t i v e f r o n t r u n n e r i n a l l t h i n g s d e s i g n , d e v e l o p i n g p r o d u c t s f o r b r a n d s f r o m a l l o v e r t h e w o r l d . I t s p r e s i d e n t ,

L a u r e n z S c h a f f e r, s h a r e s h i s t h o u g h t s o n g l o b a l i z e d d e s i g n , r e g i o n a l p e c u l i a r i t i e s a n d t h e o v e r a r c h i n g q u e s t i o n : W h a t c o n s t i t u t e s g o o d d e s i g n ?

K 2 s k iA wealth of BMW

know-how: the products shown on the following

pages exemplify the work of DesignworksUSA. These freestyle skis were created for the

K2 brand in 2012

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S e n n h e i s e r h e a d p h o n e s

In 2010, DesignworksUSA

developed headphones for manufacturer

Sennheiser that were specially designed for use in aircraft and helicopters

DesignworksUSA

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Photos Mierswa & Kluska

I n d e s i g n , w h a t ’ s i n s i d e i s a s i m p o r t a n t a s w h a t ’ s o u t s i d e

These days we really can talk about a globalization of good taste. More and more people have access to high-quality products and are becoming ever more design-conscious. They are well informed, know what they like and what suits them best personally. Good design puts the focus on end-users, who participate in the process by giving feed-back on web platforms – their ideas, in turn, providing creative fodder for companies and designers. It seems to me that design has become more democratic. Whether or not our taste has also improved remains to be seen. What’s for sure is that it’s no longer so important whether a brand name shows up on a t-shirt somewhere. Customers aren’t primarily interested in identifying with a brand’s philosophy anymore. Instead, they want to know if the brand fits their own philosophy. Customers want to know whether a product has been sustainably manufactured, whether the company making the product acts in a socially responsible manner, and whether the design supports the product’s supposed cutting-edge nature. Society is moving away from its love affair with status symbols and toward an interest in items that have meaning and create identity. For design, this represents a huge opportunity.

D e s i g n h a s t o c r e a t e r e l e v a n c e

Today more than ever, designers need to understand the audience that they’re designing for. Take Braun,® for instance – a classic example. It’s a brand that’s always been considered quintessentially German, which in itself may have been its biggest problem. Their design concept was attractive, but it wasn’t universally met with

equivalent understanding. Braun’s design and branding language was almost intolerant, even dogmatic, in its commitment to simplicity and rationalism. Consumer products must have emotional appeal, they should fascinate, inspire and encourage us to dream. The essence of Apple’s product design – from a purely aesthetic viewpoint – is none other than the same simplicity that characterizes Braun, with one key difference: Apple® is an all-encompassing experience consisting of hardware, software and services. Their product design unites all these areas under the aegis of a consistent look and feel, while generating an unprecedented sense of magic. Consumers are treated not just as users but as participants. Apple has successfully used design to confer relevance on its products and services while creating emotional appeal in the process.

D e s i g n i s g l o b a l – y e t r e g i o n a l

Design is global, no doubt about it. And yet talk of “global design” is an oversimplification: the implication that things are the same everywhere is far from true. Our task is to intelligently link products and services, developing an emotionally based approach that appeals to people with different values and cultural backgrounds. The field of design has never been more challenging than it is at present. Take China. Companies like BMW obviously want to understand this vital market and supply it with desirable products. But that doesn’t mean they will be designing Chinese BMWs in the future; it means that the car itself has to be designed so that its inherent attributes will be valued and appreciated in China as well. In short, parallel to globalization there is also a trend toward regionalization of design. Global brands are facing the

“Products must have emotional appeal. They should fascinate,

inspire and encourage us to dream.” L a u r e n z S c h a f f e r, D e s i g n w o r k s U S A

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B M W i w a l l b o xThe BMW i3 is scheduled to hit the market toward

the end of the year. To charge the new BMW i

electric vehicles, the company is providing

customers with special home charging stations.

The design of the BMW i wallbox hails from

DesignworksUSA

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L e v e l 1 0 M M o u s e

A computer mouse for professional gamers.

DesignworksUSA created the concept in

2012. An outer shell “floats” above a curved aluminum base, allowing

a glimpse of the mouse’s interior

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A D E s s e n c e ———— B M W

For more about design, try out the AD Essence app. BMW Group Design

supported the app’s development. bmw.com/design

DesignworksUSA

ultimate challenge: stay authentic, maintain a consistent image, yet find a customized approach that is effective at the regional level. This is why products are tailored to specific markets, using things like special colors, different materials, new functions or accessories with special features. An example: for many years no car has been sold in the U.S. that doesn’t include at least two cupholders. It’s simply understood that the person in the passenger seat needs this extra feature. It’s a unique lesson that took European carmakers the better part of two decades to learn.

D e s i g n i s a t e a m e f f o r t

The designer as a solitary, hardworking genius? A cliché from the past. Development of complex products, like cars, is the ultimate team effort. There’s hardly a creative field left these days featuring a phenomenon that was commonplace in times past: a lone individual assuming total responsibility for everything that’s designed and developed. It’s possible that, in marketing terms, such an approach might still make sense in the fashion industry. But for our customers, I believe this type of creative model is becoming less and less important. Design utilizes the tools of integration, taking into account fundamentally opposed models as well as imagination and the delicate balance between analytical thought and more intuitive processes. Design is always driven by collective visions shared by many people; in the end we have to take new ideas and render them practicable. The designer’s job is not to predict the future but to give it a concrete shape.

D e s i g n t h r i v e s o n m u l t i c u l t u r a l i s m

Today’s designers have to be well-versed in several disci-plines – not just architecture and popular culture, but also marketing, art and sociology, not to mention a number of technical areas. Above all, though, they need to be able to understand different cultures and to “read” markets. Most of our designers are based in California, Shanghai

and Munich, and we’re constantly sending them off on trips around the globe. From Munich, for example, it might be a four- or five-week stint in Shanghai. One of our designers was fascinated by the Chinese approach to deploying artificial light in public spaces. At night, skyscrapers are illuminated using LED light installations, while elevated roadways are lit from beneath. Though at first strange to Western sensibilities, in Asia such things are an accepted part of the cityscape and the everyday aesthetic. It is confrontations with the foreign and unknown, such as this, that generate new creative impulses in design. That might lead to the question, for example, of how light could be employed in automobile design to underscore particular features and create an unforgettable product experience. New ideas and solutions are the key, and one of the best ways of obtaining these is to study other cultures and allow ourselves to be surprised. At DesignworksUSA we work in multicultural teams. A total of 24 nationalities are represented in our studios. We respect variety – and we use it, because it encourages creativity. I’m convinced that a multicultural team has more potential to develop innovative design solutions to a particular problem than would five fellow-countrymen working diligently on the same thing.

D e s i g n i s m e a n t t o c h a n g e t h i n g s

Our understanding of design is still heavily influenced by a definition from the last century: that design is lending shape to an object. That is long since obsolete. Design doesn’t just determine an object’s shape; it is a holistic approach to problem-solving. Design not only shapes a product in an aesthetic sense, it also creates an overall experience – in the process making a statement and endowing that experience with meaning. The starting point, in other words, is no longer just “doing design” but rather “thinking design.” Good design results in products that strike an effective balance between technical feasibility, economic viability and consumer appeal.

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L a u r e n z S c h a f f e r is president of DesignworksUSA, having

enjoyed a 14-year career with the company. With the 45-year-old industrial designer at the helm,

the company has been awarded, among other accolades, the distinction of “Most

Innovative Company in Design” by Fast Company, the American trade publication focusing on

innovations in design and business

D e s i g n w o r k s U S A was founded over 40 years ago in California

and acquired by the BMW Group in 1995. The design studio works for BMW and other

brands, developing products ranging from cars to consumer electronics. DesignworksUSA

has established itself as one of the world’s leading design consultancies.

designworksusa.com