Society And Aesthetics Today As Influenced By The Changing Design In The Modern Era Of Cars
The use of cars is almost a necessity in today’s modern life. Their design has changed how we view social classes dramatically and have been largely influenced by aesthetics. Therefore this study seeks to find how exactly society and aesthetics have been changing modern car design throughout the years. Key designers like Walter De'Silva, Adrian van Hooydonk, and Shiro Nakamura and more have been the most influential modern car designers and have changed a lot of the previous things said through their design. Here, I provide a brief look in the past years of design and analyze how they have affected certain aspects of our past and how they will and have affected our future. The invention of the car has had dramatic and extensive changes in social classes. The Modern car has just increased that change throughout time, for better or for worse.
As new body styles and more options come on cars, manufacturers can now sell things at different prices and therefore connect social classes and cars together. There are 10 main types of cars in today’s world and all can be attributed to changing how we view our cars. Sedan, station wagon, sport-utility vehicle, pickup truck, coupe, convertible, sports car, minivan, hatchback, and hybrids and electric vehicles. The hatchback, sedan, and sport-utility vehicle (SUV) have been dominant in the modern era market, yet are quite simple concepts. While the market has preferred a more practical vehicle, we as a society have pushed towards more high powered luxury vehicles like the crossover SUV, sports wagon, and two-volume Large MPV. The difference in these new luxury vehicles and the more simple version of these cars has provided a large gap in how we view people with these different types of the same car.
For example, when comparing someone who has a Nissan Pathfinder against someone who has Infiniti QX60, you’ll find that they are almost the same exact car, even the interior design is very similar. But it’s the change in the car’s body style that makes the Infinity look all that much better and geared towards wealthier consumers. It has a more sporty and sleek look that modern cars have been pushing towards.
Options on cars are very similar in that they help create societal gaps, as they have done a lot to change how we view people in the same car. Car options can be very extensive and automakers use them a lot to hide the real cost of the car by making necessary parts of the car, an “option”. However, options aren’t only on the inside of the car. BMW has large packages that include lof of options for the interior of the car, but also by changing the body style of the car too. Their “M Sport” package that is available for almost every car in their line-up changes the design of the car to look much more sporty and much more aggressive to appeal to the changing market. Even though both of these cars are considered luxury vehicles, it shows that there is a difference in even the top of the line vehicles. Someone with the normal BMW X6 may look like they have quite a lot of money to be able to spend on a car, but the person driving an M-Sport X6 will look even wealthier, thus dividing up the social class into even more parts. Have you ever noticed that a car is almost always symmetrical? There is a reason why they are always bilaterally symmetrical. We often will build lots of things that aren’t symmetric but are attractive such as clothing, consumer goods, and buildings, but the cars are almost always symmetrical. The reason is that humans have seen symmetry for a very long time. Our brain has been developed from millions of years of mammal life. And in those years mammals and eventually, early humans have seen 3 basic things, plants, landscapes, and animals. There is a very-low level process in our brains that helps us understand objects and do some fundamental categorization.
As we took a look at a new visual field, at some deep level, we would process this information as an animal, landscape, or vegetation very quickly. In the modern era, we do not need to do things like that any more, or at least to that extent. However, the same low-level categorization process stays the same in today’s artificial world. Vertical structures such as telephone poles, power line structures, and cell towers get put into vegetation, buildings as landscape features, and the vehicles as the animals. We don’t think that cars are animals, not directly, but at some very very deep and basic level, we do think that animals and cars have a similarity.
Aesthetics are one of the first things that a consumer does when judging a product. In almost every car, the first thing you will interact with is visual. Therefore, it is of great importance for the manufacturers to focus on the car’s visuals. Manufacturers always have a distinct style to their car, if a consumer was given 2 different popular cars of equal class (ex. a sedan) with the badges removed, chances are they would be able to identify what brand each one is. This is because the perception of a car brand is derived from aesthetic features. The interesting thing about the relationship between aesthetics and a brand is that aesthetic features need to be distinctive enough so that they can compete with their competitors, but also familiar enough that consumers can easily identify it. Moulson and Sproles “consider this compromise made by designers between progressive designs that stand out and less revolutionary designs that are easy to identify. A misjudged compromise risks damaging heritage as the design may be poorly received, or well-received but by the wrong market segment”. This means that manufacturers have to be very careful with their designs so that they are new enough and stand-out against competition but don’t stray too far from what the overall look of the brand is. An important feature that has to do with aesthetics on a car is Cheutet’s “aesthetic key lines”. These lines on vehicles’ bodywork are thought to be aesthetically important on vehicles. Tests were done by McCormack to determine if these “aesthetic key lines” were used by stylists or what was previously thought to be used.
Previous automotive designs were defined as curve geometries. McCormack abstracted images and extracted aesthetic features of certain vehicles. He then simplified the parts and aesthetic features to two-dimensional line representations. He then used shape grammars to generate a range of concepts that experimented with the recognition of the brand and aesthetic features. His research showed that a simple two-dimensional representation of vehicles can still contain enough information to show some degree of aesthetic characteristics. When decomposing vehicle designs and isolating aesthetic features both, Cheutet and McCormack say that “character lines within a vehicle’s bodywork highlighting their contribution to overall vehicle aesthetic, and represent these using curves”. Warell has referenced “graphic” features of vehicle design to be just as important to what constitutes as an aesthetic feature. These include headlights/taillights, logos, and grill elements. In Warell’s studies, he states that the four main types of aesthetic features are the “Outline” (vehicle silhouette), “Daylight opening” (front, side, and rear windshields), “Muscles” (treatments to bodywork/raised or lowered creases or sections), and “Graphics”. These four aesthetic feature types form into which designs can be decomposed and isolated, making them the key aspects of vehicle design. These key aspects are now what is being used to change the look of a car without changing the style of a brand, as they can use these specific features to then adjust as they keep certain parts like the outline and muscles the same.
While car design and aesthetics may be changing how we look at modern design, the people behind them are the ones that are making these changes. Some of the most influential car designers that the modern world has seen are making big changes. People like Walter De’ Silva, Adrian van Hooydonk, and Shiro Nakamura. Walter De’ Silva was born in 1951 in Lecco, Italy who started his design career with Fiat in 1972 at age 21. Although nothing really came of it, it gave him the start he needed as he then moved to Alfa Romeo in 1986 where he led the renewal of the brand's design language and repositioning, specifically with the beautifully proportioned Alfa Romeo 156 sedan which has simple, abstract curves and hidden rear door handles. When he switched to the VW Group in 1999, specifically the Volkswagen Group SEAT division, he added excitement and stimulation to the division with the Tango and Salsa concepts bringing new design language. Then, De’ Silva produced the Leon and Altea that complemented his more expressive design approach, with cars like those winning several design awards like the Red dot design award, Autonis award, 'The World's Most Beautiful Automobile 2004' award in Milan, etc. In 2002, De’ Silva moved up to the Audi brand group and created most of Audi’s brand language that consumers see today. He brought Audi more fuller volumes, more curves, and “emotional design'. One of the most influential design changes he made was the introduction of the full-height, single-frame front grille that now adorns all Audi models. His current work consists of the TT, A5, A6, and R8, and all have been critical and commercial successes. Later, he became the head of design of Volkswagen and overhauled their current designs to replace the chrome-faced, clumsy, and large grilles with more subtle, slimmer ones, exemplified in the Jetta and Scirocco. The new Chevrolet Blazer may be one of the most distinctive designs to come to the crossover SUV platform in a long while. The new car focuses more on an attention-grabbing design and functionality for the consumer than anything else. The car shows off more “bold styling that features a strong grille and muscular proportions” along with a more driver-oriented interior with a more distinguishing look throughout each model of car. The Chevy Blazer is bolder and is the most progressive expression of all crossovers in recent years.
A wide stance, dramatic sculpting, tight proportions, and high beltline give it a toned, athletic look from any and all angles. “The Blazer has attitude,” said John Cafaro, executive director, Global Chevrolet Design. “It looks commanding on the road, while fulfilling the promise of versatility at the heart of every Chevy crossover and SUV. ” A front end featuring athletic hood lines, low-placed HID headlamps, and a strong grille distinguishes the car from the rest. The front end design also highlights a unique lighting accomplishment that divides the LED daytime running lamps and the headlamps. In terms of the interior, the design emphasizes craftsmanship and space. In conclusion, modern-day aesthetics and society have been key parts of the changing design of today’s cars. The ever-expanding library of car body styles and options has made similar cars into walls dividing social classes. And aesthetics have played one of the biggest roles in how cars and manufacturers differentiate and change their styles as years go on with design norms ever-changing.
