The Designers Pt5 – Aamer Mahmud, Coventry University

I think it’s been a mixed year. Some of the most interesting cars were the Gran Turismo concepts and stuff from smaller companies. The Renault Espace has come back picking up on some of the trends in graphics and exterior features and its timing is absolutely right. The Renault Eolab was good too and proves a point of what can be achieved when you apply thinking and have a sense of purpose to design.

This is something that I personally think we, as designers and educators, should really emphasise in order to make something radical and interesting. Over at the Detroit show the Toyota FT-1 really stood out. Here was a sportscar that really nailed it in terms of proportion, sculpture and graphic. Interior and exterior, the complete package, an absolutely stunning concept. It had emotion and that’s what we are in the business for also.

I’ve been at Coventry University for seven years now – after a 20-year career working for Peugeot, Mercedes and Saab – and it’s now a got a big industrial design department offering about 100 students a mix of disciplines including automotive, transport, product and interior design. Of those about 12-15 take the Automotive Design course. You can still do a one-year MA, but for 2015 we’re launching a two-year Automotive Design MA and trying to forge more of a connection – so undergraduates get to see what postgraduates are doing and vice versa across a large number of disciplines. This is unique. When you have about 18-20 staff, all expert in their areas, from product technology to aerodynamics, engineering and research and they are all practising people close to the University, it’s a fantastic mix.

“Coventry has changed incredibly and
keeps transforming. There is so much to soak up in the city from arts and engineering and the automotive side is phenomenal”

Many of our MA students come from architecture, engineering, industrial, product or graphic design. The entry requirement is absolutely the same: they have to demonstrate a level of skill and portfolio. But once they’ve done the postgraduate course, they’ll be very different thinkers. Talking to alumni who are now in a position to recruit, this is something that is quite key for them to negate or offset sameness. This year we had eight students that sit, talk and are taught together but there were eight unique projects at the end and that was great. The industry really commented on that and I think this is something we can push in terms of education.

In terms of course content our intention is to be holistic. When students graduate and enter a design studio, to just be an exterior designer is going to be very difficult. Most studios don’t have the luxury of saying ‘you just do exteriors and everyone else will do everything else’. You have to be able to handle many projects at the same time and go from a production car to a concept car, from interface design to graphics and to deliver presentations. You can do the visuals and the 3D models but you need to be able to explain the design and convince somebody, ‘yes I need that and I want to have it’. You need to question, question and question again. If you don’t do that, I don’t think you will succeed.

You can only look in the rearview mirror so much but when I ask the students a quiz at the beginning of the course I want to see what the depth of their car design knowledge is. It’s not a test, it’s a quiz. Most students can say ‘I love Audi’ or BMW but they’re not going back to the ’60s, ’50s or ’30s so I realise this is one of the things they’re missing. We’ve got to bring back the history of design. You’ve got to understand the past to understand the future. It doesn’t mean that for days and days we sit and show slides of old auto shows but it’s really about understanding what makes and defines an iconic car design. And what you find at the end of that process is context. Underneath is that vision. And if you have that, then you can develop the thinking, the proportion, the language to a level where it connects with people.

Why should students consider here over other automotive design courses? Coventry was recently voted one of the Top 50 student cities in the world to study. It has changed incredibly and keeps transforming. There is so much to soak up in the city from arts and engineering and the automotive side is phenomenal. The transport and bike museums are here alongside JLR and smaller carmakers like Aston Martin and their consultancies and London isn’t very far away. It’s not an expensive place to live either. The value, if you just measure that, is incredible.

At this year’s Geneva Motor Show, Car Design News launched its second Car Design Review yearbook, featuring the production and concept cars our judges voted as best designs of the past year.

As last year, we’ll be publishing world-exclusive interviews with the 13 design judges who decided on the recipient of each of our awards, featuring their individual votes, their views on the year just gone plus their hopes for the year ahead.

If you’re interested in buying a copy of the yearbook this interview appears in, alongside trend reports, bespoke car design infographics and a special feature on our Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Giorgetto Giugiaro, Car Design Review 2 can be purchased here.

Aamer Mahmud

Name Aamer Mahmud
Role Senior lecturer and course director for MA Automotive Design, Coventry University
Age, nationality 57, British
Location Coventry, England
Education Napier University, Royal College of Art

Aamer’s cars of 2014

Concept

1. Toyota FT-1
2. Audi Prologue
3. Land Rover Discovery Vision

Production

1. Renault Espace
2. Citroën C4 Cactus
3. Mazda MX-5