Design

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How color trends will impact car design in 2024 and beyond

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The benefits of your subscription include:

Access to motor show and concours coverage, trend and technology reports, design reviews of new and classic concept and production cars, exclusive interviews, regional reports, who’s where, design essays, career resources, design competitions, regular newsletter updates PLUS comprehensive degree show reports from the world’s leading design schools, the CDN archive of sketches, images and articles spanning 20 years of coverage.

An online subscription also gets you access to exclusive designer interviews from our annual Car Design Review yearbook, and access to exclusive interior design reviews from Interior Motives magazine. You can also receive Interior Motives in print through our online + print subscription, or buy individual copies of Interior Motives and Car Design Review.

Fees start from £55/€60/$70. Packages available for students, individuals, schools and corporates.

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by Candra•
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April design news: the history of hi-fi, the future of energy and a pizza watch | Life and style

Qhis month’s design news is pretty nostalgic. Jonny Trunk’s wonderful history of hi-fi catalogs reminds us of the world before downloads and the launch of boutique Granny Takes a Trip brings back 60s psychedelia. And, as the new exhibition at Vitra Museum shows, looking to the past for answers to modern problems may well be the best solution.

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The best design comes to Milan

L’Integrale magazine. Photograph: Salone del mobile

April sees the annual design fest of Salone Del Mobile, Milano, the Italian trade show that brings the design world’s biggest brands together. This edition focuses on kitchen and bathroom design – with a special focus on technology that will change the future of cooking.

There’ll be an exhibition co-curated by six international food magazines and featuring artists, designers and chefs who will explore the cultural significance of food. Contributing publications include Italian gastronomy magazine L’IntegraleBritish title the Linseed Journal and the Portuguese art/food platform Farta. Another highly anticipated event at the Salone was the installation “A Thinking Room” by film-maker David Lynch. He has previous experience of this world since he designed and made furniture for his 1997 film Lost Highway, and presented a collection

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by Candra•
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Car design round-up: new logos, old names and succession planning | Articles

Welcome to this week’s round-up of car design stories in brief. Whether you’re actively celebrating Easter or simply enjoying some well-deserved time off, here are the key takeaways you might have missed, including future design strategies, revived trim levels and a rejected farewell to a much-loved supercar.

End of the line for Audi R8

The last R8 has rolled off the line in Germany, ending a story that began (officially) in 2007. Based on the Le Mans concept car showcased at the Frankfurt auto show in 2003 – created by exterior designer Frank Lamberty and interior designer Jens Sieber, among others – the R8 became an instant icon for the brand. The extroverted sideblades that so defined it were gradually toned down over the years, but each generation stayed largely true to the original design, progressing cautiously in line with modern trends around lighting, sharp lines and digital cockpits. The R8 does not have a direct replacement per se, but its closest relative in the portfolio would be the electric RS e-tron GT – a sedan.

Lamborghini’s new badge

Every brand goes through a refresh now and again, but it has been some 20 years since Lamborghini updated its angry

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by Candra•
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OnePlus Nord CE4 design, specs and price leak ahead of April launch

OnePlus is gearing up for another important product launch, the Nord CE4. The phone is expected to be officially introduced in India on April 1, but the OnePlus Nord CE4 will be available for purchase in many other countries.

For now, we only have information about the phone’s price in India, but it shouldn’t be too different in other regions. Apparently, the cheapest OnePlus Nord CE4 (8/128GB) costs Rs 24,999 ($300), while the expensive model (8/256GB) is priced to sell for Rs 26,999 ($325) (via Abhishek Yadav).

Also, thanks to reliable leaker Ishan Agarwal, we now know what the phone looks like. A couple of official-looking renders show the OnePlus Nord CE4 from all angles, thus leaving nothing to the imagination.

Along with these pictures, Ishan also leaked the phone’s key specs. For example, the Nord CE4 will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor. The phone is said to sport a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, as well as a large 5,500 mAh battery with 100W fast charging support.

As far as the camera goes, the Nord CE4 is supposed to feature a dual camera setup that consists of a 50-megapixel main

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by Candra•
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Design News: Lightverse store showcases art of lighting, home-grown air purifier zaps viruses

The air indoors can sometimes be more harmful than the air outside, as airtight spaces can trap harmful airborne pathogens that are invisible to the naked eye.

Home-grown technology company FJ SafeSpace has unveiled an innovative solution that is a “breath of fresh air” for stale indoor spaces.

Launched on March 13, its new BioZone PhotoPlasma air purifier is inspired by nature in the way its cleaning process eliminates airborne threats such as bacteria, viruses and unpleasant odors.

Unlike traditional air purifiers, PhotoPlasma is said to zap contaminants using specialized ultraviolet rays. It also purifies the air in semi-ventilated spaces such as restrooms and older buildings.

FJ SafeSpace, which was founded by Mr Jay Choy in February 2023, uses Green Building Product sensors that are certified by the Singapore Green Building Council to analyze and enhance air quality.

Its PhotoPlasma technology is designed for homes, offices, gyms and hospitals.

The company’s holistic solutions, which are also energy-efficient, blend advanced sensing with PhotoPlasma patented air and surface disinfection technologies to make indoor environments healthier. It also ships its air purifiers to Malaysia and Thailand.

Information: Prices start at $488 for portable models and from $1,108 for the PuriZone home and office

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by Candra•
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Exclusive: Lexus design boss shuns over-styling for ‘the basics’ | Articles

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The benefits of your subscription include:

Access to motor show and concours coverage, trend and technology reports, design reviews of new and classic concept and production cars, exclusive interviews, regional reports, who’s where, design essays, career resources, design competitions, regular newsletter updates PLUS comprehensive degree show reports from the world’s leading design schools, the CDN archive of sketches, images and articles spanning 20 years of coverage.

An online subscription also gets you access to exclusive designer interviews from our annual Car Design Review yearbook, and access to exclusive interior design reviews from Interior Motives magazine. You can also receive Interior Motives in print through our online + print subscription, or buy individual copies of Interior Motives and Car Design Review.

Fees start from £55/€60/$70. Packages available for students, individuals, schools and corporates.

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The painful user experience of EV rental

Picture the scene: I’m at a suburban shopping mall in Southern California. The Tesla Model 3 I’ve rented is plugged in to a Supercharger, humming away quietly as it drinks up the electrons. Meanwhile I’m wandering the parking lot doing arithmetic. Or at least trying to. It’s just after midnight, I’m jet lagged and maths is not my forte.

In four odd hours, I will drive back to LAX to jump on a flight to Vegas, but in order to avoid an extra rental fee I have to return the Tesla with more than 80% charge in the battery.

EVs charging by Ed Niedermeyer

I hate extra fees so I try to recall how the battery has been discharged over the past 48 hours, when I topped it up, and for how long. What does range feel like, I wonder, groggy from lack of sleep. What number do I need to hit to get to LAX at or above the fee-free 80%? I look at the central display of the Tesla, watching the gauge inch up and the time tick down. The 80–100% charge is always the slowest and there’s 45 minutes to get to full. I desperately want to get to bed. I wish

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by Candra•
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Changan and Pforzheim team up for future mobility project | Articles

In Germany, Chinese automaker Changan has built a close relationship with the Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences. It has been sponsoring the transportation design course for several years now, helping to create a future-looking brief and inspiring the next generation to work outside the box. Previous projects have explored how future vehicles could be combined with different sports, for example.

The latest project ran through March and July this year and asked students from the transportation design course to investigate the theme of ‘3D Mobility: The Future of Flight Forms‘.

Students were also invited along to the Changan European Design Center in Turin, Italy to meet the design team, delve into Chinese culture and consider how to break away from traditional mobility concepts. They also have a chance to get hands on with Changan’s new electric sedan, the SL03, shown in the gallery below.

Below are some of the standout future mobility solutions devised by the Pforzheim students during this year’s five-month collaboration.

Race Around the World

The Race Around the World concept introduces a unique sporting event where participants traverse all the diverse terrains and biomes found on Earth. The vehicle design draws inspiration from rallying,

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by Candra•
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Watch: Bentley’s design heads on the brand’s future | Articles

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The benefits of your subscription include:

Access to motor show and concours coverage, trend and technology reports, design reviews of new and classic concept and production cars, exclusive interviews, regional reports, who’s where, design essays, career resources, design competitions, regular newsletter updates PLUS comprehensive degree show reports from the world’s leading design schools, the CDN archive of sketches, images and articles spanning 20 years of coverage.

An online subscription also gets you access to exclusive designer interviews from our annual Car Design Review yearbook, and access to exclusive interior design reviews from Interior Motives magazine. You can also receive Interior Motives in print through our online + print subscription, or buy individual copies of Interior Motives and Car Design Review.

Fees start from £55/€60/$70. Packages available for students, individuals, schools and corporates.

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For a one-time only 30 DAY FREE TRIAL REGISTER HERE

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by Candra•
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Watch: Dacia’s David Durand on winning the Concept Car Design of the Year | Articles

David Durand: Well, I’m super honored to win this concept card prize. In fact, we were surprised to see how many people appreciated the freshness of this concept. And probably it was not an object that people were expecting from Dacia – it was a bit surprising for the car designer professionals. In fact, we built this concept to communicate the evolution of our brand values, illustrating it in the design way instead of just talking about it.

We are not going anywhere near luxury or something, but trying to make the brands even more desirable and showing that design is not more expensive. It takes a bit longer, it’s a bit more complicated, but it’s possible to make a good design and keep it at an affordable price.

Getting this recognition from all those well-known car designers is truly an honor for me. I’m very proud.

Car Design News: The word radical gets used quite a lot, but it is really a radical form. There’s minimal screens, there’s cork in there, there’s canvas. It feels really rugged. I’m just very curious as to when you presented this to the higher ups at Dacia, did they immediately believe in

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by Candra•