From the Iconic Product to the Designer Brand – Automotive Design in Germany
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Autumn 2008 and the situation on the German automotive market is gloomy. Opel is going cap in hand to the Chancellor for a loan, BMW has halted production, Mercedes is holding back, the first component suppliers are going bankrupt. The crisis which began on the financial market is claiming its first victims in the real economy in the very sector which is the darling of the German public. The automotive industry, on which nearly one job in every seven in Germany depends directly or indirectly, is suffering – it would appear – from a lack of tender loving care. What has gone wrong? Is it really the precursors to a far-reaching economic downturn which are causing the forces driving the auto manufacturers to stutter so badly? Or is it the failures to respond to trends like alternative engine technologies which are making the customers reluctant to invest in the powerful and, admittedly, high-polluting engines of premium German brands? We can at least discount this theory. After all, the only segment on Germany’s car market which recorded a clear expansion in recent months was that of the SUVs – the heavy all-terrain vehicles whose emissions are far higher than the limits the EU Commission wants to impose on car-makers. Crises are nothing new in the automotive sector. We saw the last dramatic crisis in the late 1980s, when the uncertainties overshadowing the German car seemed to be so great that the then CEO of the Daimler Benz group, Edzard Reuter, sought the future not in the automotive sector alone, but in the concept of the integrated mobility corporation. Things turned out differently, as the premium German car brands not only managed to radically improve their productivity, but also and in particular to turn their market strategy around. Exciting Cars – Which Keep on Coming
With hindsight, the beginning of the second half of the 1990s marked a change in the way people saw the car. Suddenly, it was worth taking a look at Germany’s roads: there were exciting cars everywhere. This change was sparked off by a massive improvement in the quality not only of vehicle technology, but also and particularly in car design. The range of models of German car-makers became less uniform, the formal characteristics of the various brands were redefined, and formulated more vigorously than ever before. And the key point was that, following a long fallow period, advanced design was no longer the unusual manifestation of a single concept car which got the thumbs-up from the board to boost the image of the brand: instead, each new launch or update of the series revealed an overall design concept which gave the brands an unmistakeable face. Cars for Different Needs
The automotive industry had got the message. In the early 1990s, saturated markets, increasing regulation, interchangeable technology and a monotonous policy on models faced it with the need for a step change, and it achieved this phenomenally well, by going back to its core competence: the car. And the interesting thing was the key role played by design throughout the whole chain of success, from the definition of values to the strategy on models, from engineering to form, through to uniform branding across all the media.
“Design to market” became a recipe for success which for the first time offered people different cars for different needs. The launch of the Porsche Boxster, for example, as a “small” 911 dropped the entry age for the Porsche brand from 47 to 42, the A Class opened up the Mercedes-Benz brand to the female target group, and the VW Beetle raised the image of the VW brand in the USA, the world’s leading car market, to an unprecedented level. A New Image Through Innovative Design
Audi achieved the most impressive change in image in this period. The Ingolstadt-based company’s target group today is totally different from the one of 15 years ago. The proverbial “hat-wearing man”, a not-so-young, rather bourgeois gentleman, who had characterised the image of the Audi driver for decades, has been replaced by a style-conscious and innovation-aware clientele seeking self-expression. The “Vorsprung durch Technik” message, which had for many years underlined the cutting-edge technology behind the brand, but which had not been reflected in the shape of the cars, was realised in an equally advanced, radically innovative design. Milestone cars like the A8 or the compact A3 model, the flowing elegance of the A6 and the radical nature of the TT model, which is built up entirely out of segments of circles, set standards which not only revolutionised the image of the brand in its home country, but in particular met with admiration world-wide. Peter Schreyer was head of design during this period. In 2003, in recognition of his services to German design, he was awarded the Design Prize of the Federal Republic of Germany, the country’s official design award. This was unprecedented – because the design sector in Germany had long viewed car design as a question of styling which seemed miles away from the theoretical principles of German design, from Bauhaus and Ulm University. Farewell to the Icons
But is what is being presented by our premium brands, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz or Porsche, actually German design? The post of chief designer at VW has long been held by an Italian, Walter de’Silva, at BMW it’s an American, Christopher Bangle, and the 600 or so designers working around the world for Mercedes-Benz blend the creative roots of many nations. Despite this, the design of German brands differs from that of their international competitors. In fact, it may even be that something specifically German has emerged over the last few years: car design in Germany has undergone a lengthy process of saying farewell to its iconographical characteristics. The old VW Beetle was one of these icons, as was the VW Bulli, the Porsche 911 by F.A. Porsche, the RO 80 by Klaus Luthe of course, and the VW Golf. These vehicles were unique in that they quite simply invented a new type of vehicle which was not the outcome of an evolutionary process but which in each individual case represented a genuine revolution. Car Design as Corporate Design
Increasingly, design has become one of the key commercial factors in the automotive industry, and thus also for the economy as a whole. In Germany, one job in seven depends directly or indirectly on the car industry. That implies that one job in seven depends on design. In the light of this, companies now define car design as a unifying corporate design. Porsche became the most successful brand because it makes the Boxster, Cayenne, Cayman and soon also the five-door Panamera models look like clones of the 911 Carrera flagship; BMW has gone on to define the expressive interplay of concave and convex surfaces introduced in 2001 in the 7 Series across all its models, and the elegance of the typical Mercedes-Benz radiator grill can now be recognised again across the range of models encompassing more than 20 series.
So it is quite understandable that designers are now accepted by their colleagues in the automotive industry. Thanks to the dictate of the markets, the basic call by German design for a comprehensive environmental style has been met more obviously by car design than by any other branch of industry. It is therefore almost ironic that at the moment at which the Opel brand is threatened with extinction because of the commercial situation of its parent company, General Motors, the Opel Insignia has been the first product from the marque to be named Car of the Year. And it is true that, as a US-led brand in Germany, Opel has not followed the change in image of the premium car-makers. The design of the Insignia is the first one to show up the brand’s potential. And no matter what happens, there is scope for more here in terms of design. The case of Opel shows that our current sales crisis is not a design crisis, but is caused by other factors. But without a market-oriented design, one in seven jobs in Germany would be more than just at risk. Andrej Kupetz
is managing director and technical manager of the German Design Council and writes for design magazines like design report, form etc. Translator: Andrew Sims Copyright: Goethe-Institut e. V., Online-Redaktion December 2008 Any questions about this article? Please write to us!  online-redaktion@goethe.de
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