CDD Milan:Designing Connection

Framing the discussion, Car Design News' Freddie Holmes pointed to an internal shift already underway across the industry. Designers, he noted, are now “doing far more than just creating the product”, instead helping to “tell the story around it” while contributing to brand, marketing and the curation of the overall experience.

For design director at Mazda Europe Jo Stenuit, this evolution has been deliberate. Around a decade ago, the company formalised its expanded approach by creating a dedicated brand style team within design. “We’re lucky to make beautiful cars,” he explained, “but we also have a team that works closely together with marketing and PR to define the brand, typography, graphics, photography, film, architecture for events or dealerships.”

This integrated approach ensures consistency across every touchpoint. “We are very lucky to do the product, but also the environment in which it’s being presented,” he said. The payoff is clarity. “You can really understand the Mazda brand. All the elements of the brand pyramid are used on a daily basis.”

What matters is how you curate the interaction between product and customer

At GAC’s Milan studio, however, the shift has taken a more organic and arguably more experimental form. Studio head Stephane Janin described a setup that is still evolving, with a small, highly flexible team stepping beyond traditional design roles out of necessity as much as intent.

“It’s not as organised as it sounds,” he admitted. “Our studio here is very small. The people we have are multitasking.” With backgrounds spanning architecture, graphics and photography, team members contribute across disciplines, from video editing to visual storytelling. “Right now we are just here, ready to do whatever is required because there’s no structure.”

This lack of structure has, in some ways, become a strength. Janin described internal, self initiated projects, particularly those developed for Milan Design Week, as a kind of creative laboratory. “Nobody asked us to do it, but you have to practise to discover things. In design, you can’t just plan, you have to do it.”

These after hours initiatives, including the studio’s car culture activations, serve multiple purposes. They provide creative release, help define emerging brand identity and act as prototypes for future strategy. “It’s not just thinking, you’re practising,” he said. “It’s almost like a concept brand identity.”

For Cosimo Amadei, design director Mahindra Advance Design Europe, the challenge is less about experimentation and more about transformation. Joining the company during what he described as a “design revolution”, his focus has been on using design to attract entirely new customers to the brand.

“Mahindra is very well known in India,” he said, “but not many of us knew about Mahindra in design.” The task, then, was to reshape perception through product. The BE6 became a key example, designed with a clearly defined new customer in mind. “Eighty per cent of BE6 customers are new to the brand,” he noted. “That means it’s a big pool.”

Central to this effort is a sharp focus on differentiation in an increasingly crowded global market. “There are so many brands coming these days, how can you stand out?” he asked. The answer lies not in features, now considered baseline expectations, but in the holistic relationship between product and user. “What matters is how you curate the interaction between product and customer.”

This idea of emotional and experiential connection also underpins Mazda’s long standing global design strategy. Despite operating as a non premium brand, the company has maintained a consistent design language across markets, something Stenuit acknowledged is increasingly challenging.

“The challenge is becoming more difficult,” he said, “but we’re one of the few that sell the same cars globally.” The success of this approach, he argued, lies in a return to fundamentals. “We went back to basics, how pure can you go?” Combined with hand crafted development processes and principles like omotenashi, the result is a form of design that “people understand globally.”

No one knows the product better than the person that led its design, so why not tell that story?

Across the panel, a common theme emerged, the diminishing relevance of traditional styling as the primary focus of design leadership. As Cosimo put it bluntly, “the days of perfection, the highlights and the low light are a little bit gone.”

In their place is a broader, more strategic role, one that demands clarity of purpose and a deep understanding of the audience. “You cannot talk as a design director only about style,” he said. “You have to explain who they are designing for.”

Stenuit echoed this shift, describing designers as the “creative part of the company” with influence extending far beyond aesthetics. At Mazda, that influence now reaches into marketing, PR and even engineering. “We’re not just stylists anymore.”

Janin drew a parallel with the fashion industry, where the role of the creative director has long encompassed every aspect of brand expression. “It was obvious. The person is dealing not only with the garments, but with the visuals, the advertising, the logo, the catwalk,” he said. “And I think the car industry is going toward that.”

If there was a unifying conclusion, it was that designers are increasingly becoming custodians of the entire brand experience. As Holmes succinctly put it in closing, “No one knows the product better than the person that led its design, so why not tell that story?”