The 2018 annual Bright Design Challenge sponsored by NASF/AESF Foundation in collaboration with the College for Creative Studies (CCS) located in Detroit, Michigan are proud to announce the winners of the Spring 2018 semester program. This year’s program, “Advancing Identity for the Next Automotive Era” was taught by Associate Professor Raphael Zammit, MFA Chair of Transportation Design, and asked students to reimagine conventions for automotive identity that will be relevant in the coming age of fully electric and autonomous vehicles for the years 2025-2035.
For the past century, vehicle identities (faces) have evolved almost primarily from the design of major functional components such as air intakes (grilles) and lighting (headlamps). Next generation vehicles, however, may rely less (if at all) on such components due to continual advances in technology. While modern vehicles have already been incorporating faux versions of old technologies (grilles & lighting) purely for the sake of familiarity or to maintain the invested brand equity of an ‘established face’, next generation vehicles will need to establish new conventions to convey signature identities in order to not appear antiquated or inauthentic. The exploration, development, and innovation of surface finishes offers an exciting and wholly appropriate avenue for expressing identity in an entirely new context (of the coming era) of advanced mobility.
Course Objectives:
- Create new conventions of identity on both the brand and vehicular level through the unconventional research and application of materiality, color, texture, pattern, and form as expressed through surface finishes.
- Employ the concept of researched “aesthetic messaging” to elevate the use of surface finishes beyond styling decor, into ‘communicative language devices’.
- Celebrate the full creative and expressive potential of surface finishes through the creation of visually compelling video animations that highlight the surface concepts (by targeting viewers focus to those areas on vehicle).
Out of the eight students who participated in the program, five stood out as they skillfully applied finishing to their futuristic automotive concept designs.
Winners:
1st – Sung Hyun Kim
2nd – Won Choi
3rd – Zinan Nui
Honorable Mentions:
Yeong-soo Choi
Deven Khatri