Exclusive interview: José Navarro, head of design, Italdesign

Italdesign may have a new design chief, but it is a familiar face at the helm. José Navarro officially took the top design job in March this year after three decades at the company, replacing another Spaniard in the outgoing Joaquin “Chimo” García Sanchis, who has taken up a new opportunity with Electrolux.

Navarro, a vocal supporter of his predecessor with whom he studied as a junior designer, does not plan to overhaul how creative projects are handled at the iconic design house. He does, however, appreciate how new technologies and mindsets could be adopted to better reflect the urgency of the modern age.

We caught up with the passionate and candid designer from the sidelines of the firm’s exhibit during Milan Design Week to see what he’s excited for and to better understand his approach to contemporary design – be it vehicles or otherwise.

Car Design News: You were promoted only recently, but do you have any initial thoughts on the direction you might want to take moving forward?

José Navarro: Chimo did a really good job, let me first say this. It's not that we need to have any kind of revolution. We are not going to change things that are working. Italdesign has been at the top of the game for more than almost 60 years, so it's not that I arrive and suddenly everything changes. Rather, I just make another step forward – as all the previous heads of design did before me.

We will make steps in order to align with the times and help the company to approach new situations and this new way of life. I would like to encourage us to push more and more, to make improvements here and there, but that is quite normal.

CDN: How will you leverage your time in China – has it given you a nuanced perspective on how design can be approached?

JN: That time in China helped me realise something that is perhaps a little controversial: we are in Europe are too calm. We don't see the urgency and how quickly times are changing. China moves much faster than we do in Europe, and this is something that I try to push every day.

In China, I saw something that felt more like the future. As such, we have to continue improving our tools and the way we work to give to the client the best quality – because that’s what Italdesign has always done. We cannot lose the value we offer to the client: the experience that we have, the experts that work with us across design. It's incredible how good our people are. We always provide value, but we now need to give it in a shorter time. That's the challenge we face right now and it’s not easy. 

I don't arrive here with all the answers; now I have to get to work, just like Chimo did.

CDN: It's like a relay race, he has passed you the baton.

JN: Exactly.

CDN: In fact, was there quite literally a handover process?

JN: I have to say, because of our friendship, that handover did help me to understand the ideas I would like to implement, and how I can develop myself. At the end of the day, it's a process. It's not about changing or correcting, rather just evolving to make continued progress.

CDN: You seem quite optimistic for the future, but also pragmatic about how you get there. Do you want your designers to have the same mindset?

JN: First of all, I don't want anybody that doesn’t have passion for design, because this is the most important thing. I am almost 60 years old, but I have a lot of passion for my work because I love it. Everybody who surrounds me needs to have this passion. But one thing is passion, another thing is romanticism. They are not the same. You have to use it to change things and develop for the future.

I love to see the old tools, but I will be not able to work at the speed we need to today. We have to be realistic

CDN: How might that be reflected in your design processes moving forward?

JN: Times are changing, and we are not really working with clay anymore or spending lots of time with the pencil. When clients come to Italdesign, they do not just want us to give them nice sketches or nice models. They want to have the best car possible, and we specialise in that. It’s about bringing our people together to create that value, not about one beautiful sketch. It’s about making cars in a different way, adapting our approaches, but always with the same result: the customer gets what they are looking for.

CDN: So your team members should be willing to evolve and grow their skillset with what's coming available – not just sticking to the traditional means because that's how it used to be done.

JN: Absolutely. Look, of course I love to see the old tools, but I will be not able to work at the speed we need to today. We have to be realistic – you can do oil paintings at home, but this is not the way we are going to make cars today. We are not walking to the model shop and working with all the workers painstakingly creating models by hand.

CDN: At one point in time that was the peak of technology, I suppose. Now things are evolving and you’re adapting with that.

JN: Right. Today we have different technologies, so we have different approaches to our projects. You might say ‘José you are pragmatic’ but I am actually very romantic about design. But when we talk about a real-world project, about a business, you cannot be a romantic.

CDN: Italdesign does not only create cars but a whole host of other products from watches and coffee machines to humanoids, drones and everything in between. Is there anything beyond the world of cars that particularly excites you moving forward, or something from the past that you admire?

JN: Let's talk about future; it's more interesting. Cars are the exciting thing right now, but I see a strong future for robotics too which is very exciting. We are really imagining something, and the same can probably be said with cars 60 or 70 years ago. Robotics is brand new and it gives me that feeling of "wow, we are really inventing something" and it's beautiful.

The other thing is aerospace because it's another area we want to explore. The beautiful thing is that we can take some of our experience in cars, our tastes in colour and trim, and bring that to aerospace. 

A few years ago we did the cabin for a plane and even won a design award for that. So aerospace is not new for me, but it is still very interesting.

I love working on cars, but if I have to say something beyond that, robotics is really exciting.