Volvo looks beyond automotive for new head of design
The OEM has tapped the broad expertise of Jeremy Offer, formerly of electric commercial vehicle start-up Arrival, to take the reins. It may be a sign of a wider trend.
In a somewhat surprising turn of events, Robin Page has been supplanted at Volvo Cars, with incoming global head of design Jeremy Offer joining from Arrival. Page had been with Volvo Cars since 2015 and will remain in a somewhat vague role of senior advisor for now. Offer will officially start on 1 May 2023.
While Offer does not bring a wealth of experience from established automotive OEMs, he does carry over a broad range of skills acquired from a diverse mix of fields. The news that Offer had been brought in came just a day after he formally announced his resignation at Arrival, where he had spent more than six years as chief design officer. The change follows Volvo’s appointment of Jim Rowan as chief executive in March 2022 who was previously CEO of the Dyson Group and COO at Blackberry. Rowan’s background working in industrial design and consumer electronics chimes with Offer’s career trajectory.
Page originally joined as interior design director back in 2015, moving from a similar position at Bentley where he had worked for 12 years. He was soon promoted in 2017 to senior vice president of design. A judge at the inaugural Car Design News People Awards in December, Page has risen through the ranks as one of the industry’s most respected designers. To that point, he also took home the award for Most Supportive Design Leader at the awards.
Offer may have less time at an automotive OEM under his belt, but he is by no means inexperienced. He counts 35 years of experience in the design industry, ranging from industrial and service design consulting to leading in-house design teams and setting strategic design direction at C-suite level.
He describes his specialties as including: business understanding, industrial design, automotive design, product and service design, user research, UX, human-centred design, strategic design guidance, CGI visualisation, VR and AR, artificial intelligence, sustainable design and design for a circular economy.
And this is perhaps what attracted top brass at Volvo. From many conversations of late, the general consensus is that car designers must be more multi-faceted than ever. The days where individuals could specialise in one field (and one field only) appear to be fading, and design teams now consist of a broad mix of talents. There is closer collaboration than ever and in many cases, an interior designer might have a hand in exteriors, CMF in UX and clay modellers in digital.
The expression “jack of all trades” is often misinterpreted as a slight against an individual’s talent, a negative. But that is because the complete phrase has been widely forgotten, coined by Shakespeare to praise those who are well-versed in multiple skills: “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”
Offer appears to share a similar view. ”The design team that we have built around us […] is in no way the stereotypical car design team,” he said in his announcement. “Industrial designers are at the heart of it; strategic thinkers that bring a totally fresh outlook to an industry that has often been a closed book to all but those who have trained as car designers. Fresh ways of thinking.”
There is an acceptance that the average designer must, at the very least, familiarise themselves with other skills
Offer adds that the team at Arrival had ”pioneered not only a new way of thinking about mobility design, but about the sustainability of the materials we build from, the vehicle architecture itself, through to completely new ways of assembling vehicles. All these learnings I hope to be able to bring to my next role.”
And so while it may have taken many in the design world by surprise, the shuffle to bring Offer in could be a sign of a broader trend. Speaking to CDN during a tour of Mahindra’s new UK-based advanced design outpost, studio director Cosimo Amadei highlighted how the team had been assembled with mixed skills in mind. ”Everyone here is a multi-tasker,” he explained.
It is also worth noting that many emerging talents coming through the world’s top design schools have already spoken of the need to ‘do more’; while the desire to specialise in a particular field remains, there is an acceptance that the average designer must, at the very least, familiarise themselves with other skills.
“The upcoming generation of clay modellers is educated in both worlds,” says Andreas Feussner, head of modelling at Mazda Europe. “For them it is not just clay modelling, but hybrid models. These guys know physical modelling and fabrication, but also have the digital skills and understand how to bring it all together.”
Perhaps the appointment of Offer signals a trend that has been bubbling away for some time already, with design directors often promoted from distinct fields such as interiors or exteriors over the years. We are sure there will be similar moves yet to come elsewhere.