The Designers Pt 9: Lea Thomas Smith, Lear
“Whatever we come up with as a design, we have the ability to get produced”
“Whatever we come up with as a design, we have the ability to get produced”
We do everything in-house so we can make that promise. Lear offers vertical integration of the entire vehicle seating process. From the first idea to all the materials needed: the structure, the foam and the leather or textile. Obviously we need to build trust. As a world- leader in seating, Lear already has that in certain areas. For me it’s now about going out to the carmakers’ designers and building on that relationship.
The design will always be the full responsibility of the carmakers but we can give them a hand, and if we are allowed to go in at the beginning and be part of that creative process we can help them very early on to see how can we feasibly translate that into production.
Lear’s design team
We are also talking about cost engineering. There are benefits to us starting earlier rather than later, when you might get given a design and have to work around a lot of obstacles that maybe wouldn’t have occurred if we were part of the process earlier on.
Last year ‘Crafted By Lear’ was our new luxury brand and it is a huge initiative. We want customers to say: ‘Wow, we want a seat Crafted By Lear.’ Bose or Bang & Olufsen have branded in-car speakers so why couldn’t we perhaps do something similar? More than a vision, it’s a strategic goal. But it will need momentum. This is why I came on board in October 2015, to really support that role in building our brand.
Fabric and stitching options
So I have two roles, I’m responsible for the brand Crafted By Lear and am also head of design. What we are trying to do with this new brand is help our customers translate unique styling and design into the whole process all the way to production. I don’t know if you remember the ’90s Audi TT concept with the stitching it had? That was one of the first vehicles I can recollect where the show car was nearly the same as the production car. That is something we want to achieve here, carrying that atmosphere, desire and spirit of the designers down to the point of sale.
The Crafted By Lear prototype, still under wraps
The Crafted By Lear prototype I let you glimpse under the wraps? We’ll be showing more of it in 2016. It was a design vision and strategy I had for one of our key customers, and formed part of my first presentation to the board of directors. It was very well-received and we’re going ahead with it. It will of course take some time to develop but it could be included in a product for 2020.
We were inspired by Eames and wanted to push the envelope of design. I would rather push the limit towards the engineers and say: ‘What is needed to make this happen?’ Apple’s Steve Jobs is a great example for me. We hear he was a difficult character but he had a vision and got it through. More designers are really starting to grasp the point that exterior and interior [design] have to sit together. That was a struggle for many carmakers in the past. There were two teams: one doing interior, the other the exterior, and once the vehicle was made you thought, ‘okay, where’s the link between the two?’ But I think that situation has become much better.
Seat sketch
I’m very happy to see what’s happening in the US market in terms of interior and exterior styling. Both GM and Chrysler are getting very sophisticated and detailed, and are playing a very good role. If I look at the Cadillac Escalade years back, it was just a chunk of a car. Today, the design has developed with very elegant elements, even though we are still talking about a big vehicle.
Many seats today look like a sock pulled over a rigid structure. They can have quite good detailing in the front but I want to show more. Every customer looking at a Crafted By Lear seat should feel like, ‘I want to come and sit in this, this looks comfortable, I can relax’.
As we are a leading Tier 1 supplier I’m looking for elite students to work for us. They will have won competitions in their school and have above average grades. But I also want designers that are well-rounded, not specifically catering to one area but who have a broader horizon and bring that into their design.
We’re engaged with all brands globally. So there’s no way you can learn in a shorter time than with us. We have the luxury that we can offer our designers the chance to work globally with all brands, and that, for somebody starting their career, is a dream situation. I want our design centre for craftsmanship to be a melting pot of unique individuals.
Autonomous driving will challenge all Tier 1 suppliers in furnishing vehicles. We are discussing open-floor plan structures with versatile seats. Previously I was the CEO of a large RV manufacturer in Europe and they all had revolving seats and other interesting structures and I know from that history that you have to be careful not to overstretch the multi-functionality of interiors.
Customers tend to think in boxed areas, buying a vehicle for a purpose and using it there. But it’s an evolution. We need to become more flexible on seats, materials and comfort. People might well start to spend more time in their car than they did previously and also do different things.
Lea Thomas Smith
Role Director of design, centre for craftsmanship USA, Lear
Age 49
Nationality British
Location Detroit, Michigan, USA
Education University of Trier, Germany and Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark
Lea’s cars of 2015
Concept
1. Mercedes F 015
2. Mazda RX-Vision
3. Suzuki Air Triser
Production
1. Volvo S90
2. Skoda Superb
3. Ford GT
Car Design Review 3
This interview is taken from the Car Design Review 3 yearbook. Published annually by the writers of Car Design News, the book rounds up all of the major car-design trends seen in the past 12 months, counts down the best production and concept car designs of the year and features interviews with 18 of the best car designers working today, plus an in-depth interview with Syd Mead, this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award winner.