Inside the studio: General Motors, Advanced Design UK

“There’s always this question regarding advanced studios. Are you there to win projects? Or are you there to influence the mothership? We are here to present different ideas, inspire the team and influence,” says Julian Thomson, design director of General Motors, Advanced Design UK.

Since closing its Coventry studio over a decade ago, the American giant was conspicuous by its absence on the continent. For a company with a global footprint, this felt like an omission. In re-establishing itself this side of the Atlantic, GM fitted-out a bright new studio in Leamington Spa and scooped up the respected Thomson in 2022, to lead it. Armed with a technically advanced workplace, a chequebook and blank team sheet, the designer quietly went about assembling a group that could play the role of influential friend to the head office in Michigan. With such an appealing remit it comes as no surprise to find several familiar faces in the ranks.

“I make no apologies for calling in some of my ex-colleagues because we want to get up and running with some very experienced people,” says Thomson. “The value of being able to work with people you trust is crucial for an organisation. As we go forward, we will cast the net wider.” This familiarity is evident in the studio atmosphere. On the day CDN visited, five department heads plus Thomson met us in the kitchen area. The feeling was relaxed but with an energy that accompanies a creative studio primed to show its work to outside eyes for the first time.

“It’s been a really exciting time for us,” says Dominic Najafi, head of studio and exterior design. “It is almost like picking a football team and you can have any player in the world. Everyone we’ve asked so far has said yes.” A veteran of the sprightly variety with a career roster that includes Bentley, Bugatti and 11 years at JLR, Najafi was one of the first to say yes. He was followed in short order by Douglas Hogg, head of interior design; Mark Humphreys, head of design technical, Iain McShane, head of 3D creation and visualisation, and Joana Fidalgo, head of design business and programme management, complete the management team.

The studio, enabled and encouraged by GM design VP Michael Simcoe, has an enviable degree of creative freedom, putting forward their own suggestions for projects. “It is not that every project has a window in time, and you have to slot into a process. If we have a great idea we feel passionate about then we can do it. Or if we see something we want to be a part of we can get involved. We are very free,” says Thomson.

Though reporting on the projects themselves is strictly verboten, for now, it is fair to say the team has been far from idle in its short existence. The team is focusing on the big picture stuff, understanding each aspect of the GM brands and reflecting back ideas and developing concepts that can feed into a potential product strategy. Given its size – the studio numbers around 29 – agility is the watchword with traditional linear design processes deemed too restrictive. Instead, the team clusters around the brief, which feeds out into the brand vision and then the various design treatments across exterior, interior, CMF, technical and 3D creation in the manner of a series of concentric rings.

Sitting between exterior and interior design teams, but with an interrogative remit that forms the nucleus of the work is brand strategist Sophie Ellis, who looks at cultural and social trends and then helps determine how those observations would play out when applied to a specific brand.

To date, it has been a tale of two concepts from the performance and practical ends of the GM portfolio: the output of what began with workshops and analysis and culminated in full-size models. Support for the process comes from Humphrey’s team. “For us, it’s about enabling the design,” he says. “We are purely here to deliver the vision of the designers and come up with creative solutions to do that. Obviously, there’s a number of people here to give that tangible output and of course, Joana [Fidalgo] gives us the means, the tools, the capability to deliver on that.”

Looking at the work, it is clear that Thomson and his team have not simply delivered European versions of American cars, rather they have tapped into the Americanness of the brands without, crucially, falling into pastiche. During the presentations, the word ‘authenticity’ pops up again and again. There might be a very English feel to the studio in terms of humour and background, but there is a genuine love of American car culture too.

Nevertheless, the first presentation at the headquarters in Michigan was naturally a little daunting, given it was impossible to show a model of the work. “How do we show something different and make a big impression? These projects are like their crown jewels and you have these cheeky Brits going over there to present them,” says Thomson.

The studio instead relied on strong, and in some ways unconventional, visuals neatly packaged in a brand microsite to illustrate a strong design story. In the end, the team need not have worried. “I think they appreciated that we embraced American design as a positive. And GM still does some of the best presentation work in terms of renderings. Hopefully, we bring a narrative through fresh eyes,” says Thomson.

Technology allows the studio to work with the necessary nimbleness. Acknowledgement of this comes in the form of state-of-the-art VR and Augmented Reality gadgetry. There are headsets, but the team also makes good use of tablets for online design reviews. McShane heads up this the largest team, 3D Creation and Visualisation, which is evenly split across digital and clay modelling.

Bringing physical and digital models is not just about efficiency but signals the symbiotic (rather than hierarchical) nature of the creative exchange. “The digital needs the clay to work, and the clay needs the digital to work,” says McShane, emphasising the importance of integrating the two disciplines.

There is a literacy to the studio design that elevates the space above just the process. Feature walls recall Superstudio’s Quaderna coffee table for Zanotta. There are some grand structural gestures too. A pair of mezzanines overlooking a pretty expansive modelling floor complete with milling machines. The division of space is logical: offices on one side, VR suite with interior buck on the other. Adjacent to the machines, silent today, and shielded from the glare of the studio lights by a suspended ceiling, sit the design team.

Alongside the team is a well-realised full-size model – low slung and dynamic. The physical manifestation of the first project, revealed to GM headquarters during a recent visit by the design leadership. Equally intriguing is a second model resting like a block of sculpted obsidian in the external courtyard. Again, the brand is top secret, but without giving too much away, the European studio aimed to create a concept that would appeal to a new generation of outdoorsy consumers interested in ideas of self-sufficiency, connectivity (when it suits them) and sustainability.

Technology features heavily in a design that blurs indoor and outdoor space. Think active shading glass coupled with ambient lighting, adaptable and detachable seats augmenting social spaces outside the car, all wrapped in a fresh aesthetic.

The interior, which for now exists primarily in the virtual space accessible through VR headsets, is defined by floating, architectural elements and an invisible interface that lean into a minimalist aesthetic. “It feels very open and spacious, but still super modern, super minimal, super light,” says Douglas Hogg, head of interior design.

“The car is really high tech, but it gives you that analogue connection, not digital. It allows you to make that disconnect from the world that you want to try and make in this space. And it’s a bit of an enabler to a lifestyle adventure is one of the terms we use. So, the inside, outside messaging, again, is you get to your destination, and the car just unfolds like a Swiss army knife.”

Two contrasting projects, two substantial pieces of work. And while Thomson and co. seem happy with what they have produced so far, crucially, so does management. Beyond the work itself, the hope is GM Europe will be a conduit for younger global talent who can hone their skills with the team in Leamington and potentially take that knowledge and fresh perspective to Warren.

Good relationships with higher education is fundamental to this strategy, explains Fidalgo. “We want to be a gateway for European talent because we’re in such a privileged position. There are so many good design schools around us, so we really want to make the most of that talent and recruit it here. They can learn different ways of doing things and inject that into the US.”

Undoubtedly, cutting your design teeth under the auspices of Thomson will be an appealing prospect to any wannabe car designers. The design director was recognised by his peers at the CDN People Awards in 2023 for his pastoral, but no less demanding, leadership. And freed from the more prosaic end of the car business, Thomson is back to what he does best: design.

“My main job is creating the right environment and atmosphere to make people thrive. Take away all the threat, take away any stoppages, take away any confusion, they can just get on with their jobs,” he says. “Keeping that mental stability and respect for your team is crucial because at the end of the day, that is all you have got isn’t it.”