Drew Smith is a design strategist, trend analyst and journalist hailing from Sydney, Australia. Drew has worked and lectured in Europe, the UK and Australia. Currently freelance, Drew writes DownSideup Design, a blog where he muses on design strategy and trends in the automotive industry. He has worked for clients such as Toyota/Lexus, Volkswagen, Kia and The Movement Design Bureau.
In this fantastic interview Drew shares his thoughts and insights on a variety of topics including the current state of the automotive industry, how designers can be more strategic and the future of design education. Enjoy and please take the time to leave your thoughts and musings in the comments.
Highlights
- “The automotive industry is at a real crossroads and there’s enormous potential for positive change by thinking deeply about personal mobility and whether the car, as we currently know it, is the best solution.”
- “Australians have a tendency to see design as an elitist pursuit concerned simply with the aesthetics of things.”
- “It’s vital that young designers start building the networks that will allow them to tap into the best emerging practice from all over the world.”
1. Drew, Welcome to Design Droplets. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me, could you please give me a quick introduction on yourself.
It all started when I was 6. There was a Porsche 928 parked across the road from the family home. After a brief conversation with my mum about whether it was a sports car or a race car, I decided a) that I was in love and b) I wanted to be involved in the car industry, whatever it took and I began drawing cars anywhere and anytime I could.
After an Industrial Design degree from UTS in Sydney and a Masters in Automotive Design from Coventry University in the UK I now work as a design strategist, primarily within the automotive industry, helping design and marketing teams better understand the cultural and technological changes that will affect their future product line-ups.
A typical project might include in-depth research into emerging social or technological trends and seeing how these will impact on the exterior or interior concept for a vehicle, benchmarking existing vehicles for perceived quality or brand relevance or analysing trends from the furniture, consumer product and automotive shows to inform and influence future concepts.
2. You currently blog your musings on design strategy and the automotive industry at DownsideUpDesign, how does blogging inform your design?
There’s two components to the interaction between my blogging and my work as a design strategist.
Firstly, to be able to blog, as you well know, one needs to be well informed, particularly when I’m talking about developing trends and how they might apply to the car industry, so I end up doing enormous amounts of reading across many different topics and media types. In that lies the very essence of how blogging informs my design strategy work: to help clients make strategic decisions about future products, I must be able to inform them of emerging social and technological trends and how they’re going to impact their customers and, by consequence, their product development cycle. Reading-to-blog helps me achieve the depth of knowledge I need to be able to assist them.
Secondly, blogging is a fantastic way to reach an audience of people who, although not necessarily working in the same industry as me, are interested in the same things I’m talking about. Because of this I can connect with these people either through comments on my posts, email or – if I’m really lucky – in person. When that happens, it’s incredibly powerful because I can very quickly test my ideas out, refine them or blend them together with the ideas of others.
3. What are your thoughts on the current and future state of the automotive industry, in terms of Design?
I think the automotive industry is at a real crossroads and there’s enormous potential for positive change by thinking deeply about personal mobility and whether the car, as we currently know it, is the best solution to all the mobility issues we face.
For a long time now I think there’s been a level of complacency within the automotive sector. Brands have capitalised on years of relatively easy success to branch out into ever-smaller niches or indulge in lazy evolution that does nothing for brand capital but allows them to turn a quick buck. The examples are manifold, Porsche and it’s Cayenne being the most well-known, but as the conditions for owning a car become more difficult I think consumers will be increasingly discerning about where they choose to spend their money. Car makers will have to work harder than ever to get mainstream customers to part with their cash so I’m hoping that this will lead to a refocusing on developing vehicles that solve more problems than they create or, perhaps more realistically, simply create less problems!
We’ve already seen the downsizing trend take hold in Europe which has seen car buyers moving down one or even two sizes of vehicle (say, from an Audi A6 to an A4 or even A2/A3). Just because down-sizers are trading down in size, however, they don’t want to lose the features or prestige of the car they’re leaving behind. Brands like Audi, BMW and VW have managed to create products that ease the transition back down through the product portfolio by making sure that their small cars look and, just as importantly, feel as good as their big ones so the sense of compromise is greatly reduced.
I don’t see the downsizing trend reversing any time soon and there were signs at the Frankfurt show that manufacturers are looking to provide even smaller products that are far better suited than the traditional car to the urban context, where over 50% of the world’s population now lives. The Renault Twizy, for example, is a 2-seater urban runabout that, to sit in, feels just like a much larger car, removing a psychological barrier to its adoption.
On the flip side, there are signs that some companies will simply squander this opportunity and continue to operate as they have been for the last 100 years. In my view, they’ll do so at their peril. One of the things that nearly brought down the Big Three (GM, Ford and Chrysler) was the stifling bureaucracy and stubbornness that ensured that when they really needed to change, and fast, they were stuck resolutely in the mud.
To that end, it’s been fascinating to watch the small start-ups like Aptera, Fisker, Local Motors and the like as they’ve adopted a much more agile approach to designing and building cars.
Local design and production is another interesting trend that I think will have legs, particularly as the financial and environmental cost of international supply chains becomes unmanageable. We’re already seeing the beginnings of this shift with Local Motors in the States and Gordon Murray’s T25 city car, which has been designed from the outset for local adaptation and production.
For me, though, the really exciting developments will look at automotive design beyond the vehicle (perhaps this is better termed mobility design). It’s my hope that we will start to develop – in earnest – integrated systems, rather than individual products, that will still permit us the freedom of the car ownership model while mitigating the social an environmental impacts that come with millions of individually owned vehicles.
4. You have worked in Europe as a Design strategist in the automotive industry, what is this Design strategy business all about? And how do you think Australian designers can be more strategic?
For me, strategic design is about integrating design at the very core of the business model. I think designers have been viewed, and indeed I think many of us have, to date, viewed ourselves as providing the end product. Anything beyond or before that is the responsibility of the market researchers, the sales and marketing team, the management team etc.
Design strategy is about taking our unique mix of problem solving skills and applying them to aspects of the business beyond simply creating a product in order to foster a holistic brand or business presence. It’s been really enjoyable to witness how the insights that I gained from the development of a product or a system can be used to develop and support a business model from start to finish.
I think the most important thing Australian designers can do is to start viewing themselves as having a fundamental role in the business of business. It’s no longer enough to view the delivery of design work as the end result. One of the quickest ways into this mind-set is to start reconciling brand values with design output, because if Apple has demonstrated anything, the strongest marketing material is the product you put into customers’ hands.
There are so many brands out there that speak one language but deliver another in their products. For brands to build strong, lasting and profitable relationships with consumers it’s imperative to remove the discord between the espoused and the experienced. I think industrial designers are amongst the best people to achieve that.
5. What do you believe the Australian design scene can learn from the European design scene or vice versa?
I think where Europe really excels is in the level of design awareness, both at an industrial level and more broadly in the public conscience.
Looking at the business side of design, there’s a far greater level of shared understanding between manufacturers and SMEs and designers and both the EU and national governments are working to improve this all the time.
While in England, I worked in a consultancy that accessed both EU and UK funding to connect designers with the manufacturing sector in the West Midlands, the once-thriving industrial heart of the UK. Because of rising labour costs and the explosion of the eastern European and Chinese manufacturing industries, you could see the lifeblood of this area draining away with each factory closure.
Working with both established designers and design students from Coventry University, we would run design interventions with these companies, helping them to see how they could take their machinery, processes and, most importantly, their invaluable knowledge and adapt them to new, more profitable product areas.
It was fantastically rewarding because, on the one hand, I witnessed the strengthening the manufacturing sector as they began to see the impact of design on the bottom line. On the other hand, students who might have been generalists on graduation learned valuable, industry specific skills.
When looking at the issue of public awareness of design, I think Australians have a tendency to see design as an elitist pursuit concerned simply with the aesthetics of things. We need to better demonstrate how design can positively impact other aspects of our existence, things like quality-of-life, the environment and the economy. We also need to better publicise design – and the Australian design industry – to encourage people to expect good design, not just be pleasantly surprised when they happen upon it. It’s not just a question of educating the public either. Our governments need to be encouraged to take a pro-design approach to the development of infrastructure projects and cultural initiatives so that design becomes an integral part of how our cities and states present themselves. The state of public design and architecture in New South Wales at the moment is such that it can make a grown man cry, despite the best efforts of Paul Keating!
What can the European scene learn from us? To communicate a sense of fun! Perhaps because there is such a strongly established, historical design conscience in Europe, there can be a creeping sense of stolidity in form, colour and material selections in European products (the mercurial Dutch aside, of course). Australian designers tend to be a little more experimental and, while not always hitting the mark entirely, there’s an authentically care-free spirit that runs through many of our products that sets them apart on the international stage.
6. What are your thoughts on the current design culture and design consciousness of Sydney?
You’d have to be a Melbournite to ask me that! Look, I’ve always used a little analogy to describe the difference between Sydney and Melbourne to the people I’m met on my travels and it goes like this:
Sydney’s the brassy, busty blonde in a sequinned Versace gown that’s slit up to here. She’s beautiful, glamorous and above all she loves to party.
Melbourne, on the other hand, is a tad more demure, a rich brunette dressed in Prada, thinking somewhat more deeply about the world around her.
Both characters, without question, have their merits. Having lived in some fairly grim European cities, Sydney’s youthful exuberance and devil-may-care attitude is so beguiling and refreshing but I sometimes wish we could be a little less light-hearted and take the business of design more seriously. That’s an area where Melbourne, in the Australian scheme of things, really excels.
I think that things will start improving for Sydney as our institutions get a handle on the importance of strategic design. Having just completed a semester of teaching at UTS, I had a great opportunity to sit and chat about the future of industrial design with my fellow lecturers along with other design professionals. The recognition of the importance of strategic design and the will to develop its practise is there, we just need to integrate it into teaching and promote it’s usefulness to industry and businesses alike.
Also, as I’ve said previously, I think Sydney also suffers from a lack of appreciation or awareness of design which means that, more often than not, we’ll accept second best. In the public realm we rely far too much on our natural assets, the bridge and the opera house!
Drew's MA thesis project, the Renault Helios, explored the integration of OLED displays into vehicle surfaces to facilitate customisation.
7. Having lectured in Europe & at UTS in Sydney, what are your thoughts on the future of Design Education?
The UK, where I previously lectured, and Australia both seem to be engaged – for better or worse – in a balancing of the economy, previously heavily dependant on manufacturing, to one increasingly built on the delivery of services. The challenge for educators is how to prepare industrial designers to productively interface with both.
We still need to teach the traditional design skills that enable the development of manufactured goods but there needs to be a greater focus on developing strategic and research skills that will enable young designers to dovetail their unique approach to problem-solving with broader business objectives. There are murmurings of a greater synergy between UTS’s Business and Design schools and this, to me, would be a really exciting development.
It also seems obvious to me that industrial design students are ideally placed to capitalise on the inexorable rise in the importance of interface design to the overall product design process. There are so many examples of great 3D design being let down by an awful 2D interface or vice versa. Students should be able to go out in to industry feeling equally at ease with both, allowing them to encourage a unified experience for the end user.
8. What key skills and traits will Australian Designers need in the future to remain relevant as China becomes increasingly focused on innovation and design as opposed to manufacturing?
Not having worked in China, or indeed with a Chinese company before, I’m hesitant to hold forth on this one but no matter where you work in the world, it’s your cross-cultural skills that will help you through the door and keep the machine of business well oiled.
When I was growing up, I was fortunate to spend some time in France and became pretty fluent in French. Despite the main language of the automotive design sector being English, having a European language to call on has broken down many barriers and allowed me to make connections that otherwise would have been lost in translation. The same will also hold true in China. I’ve also heard that understanding Chinese business etiquette is a key to success in that market, as in many ways the approach to negotiating and signing off on deals is radically different to ours.
Underpinning all of this, of course, is the need for designers to cultivate the openness, tolerance and generosity of spirit that is inherent to anyone wanting to make the world a little (or a lot) better.
9. Being geographically remote, how do you think Australian Designers can continue to remain internationally relevant and at the cutting edge of design?
As much as the internet has broken down many of the barriers that kept Australia somewhat in the dark by allowing us to stay on top of developments in design practice as they occur, there’s really no substitute for going out and gaining real-world experience in different parts of the globe.
As Australian designers, we need to take every opportunity to collaborate with designers and manufacturers in other parts of the world. In so doing we not only get to experience different approaches to design process and gain cultural insight but, in line with the answer to your previous question, we gain a better understanding of how to work cross-culturally.
Whatever way you chose to get your fix, be it a university exchange, working overseas for a couple of years or participating in shows or conferences, it’s vital that young designers start building the networks that will allow them to tap into the best emerging practice from all over the world.
Drew at work, photographing a Ford Fiesta for a design benchmarking project.
10. Drew, thanks for taking the time to talk with us here at Design Droplets. Do you have any final thoughts or advice for Design Droplets readers?
There’s always more than one way to skin a cat!
I always wanted to be the guy on the studio floor, sketching furiously day-in, day-out, but it was never going to be my bag. Thanks to some wonderfully supportive thesis supervisors, Nick Hull and Cherrie Lebbon, I saw that there were other ways to help shape the future of automotive design. Now, working as a design strategist, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Oh, and the Porsche 928 is still my favourite piece of automotive design.
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