For Tata Motors' Martin Uhlarik, a car is a digital product

Uhlarik with the Curvv.ev
Uhlarik with the Curvv.ev

Summary

For Tata Motors’ Martin Uhlarik, good design is about fitting into a customer’s lifestyle and thinking digital and futuristic every day

Good design is all about ease of use, whether one is designing spaces, clothes, appliances or cars. For Martin Uhlarik, global design head of Tata Motors, understanding who is going to use his products is fundamental to his design philosophy. After a recent walk around London for a design immersion experience and a visit to the state-of-the-art Tata Motors Design Tech Centre in Warwick, UK, Uhlarik explained how he and his team draw inspiration from trends in fashion, electronics, and even the way people use public spaces.

Could you explain how designers draw inspiration from the world and how it translates to the final product?

All of us as designers are fundamentally curious. We’re constantly looking at what’s new, what’s innovative. We go to auto shows. I go to dealerships on weekends, you know, dragging my kids…. When we start a programme (to design a vehicle) we think about who the customer is going to be. We break it down a lot, a kind of map of the customer landscape, from an Indian customer point of view or global customer point of view. Then we think where would these people go, and we go there to see what they’re shopping for. Whatever the trend—it could be an electronics product, a fashion product. As creative people, we walk around looking at what people are buying, and we look at whether there is something happening. To be honest, in my personal time I do that, so we’re getting inspiration everywhere all the time.

Traditionally, at design studios, you looked at the history of design within an automotive company (and designed new vehicles). The R&D centre would be where the plant was, and you went to an office where the engineering was done. So you got into this routine where you would come in and theoretically punch the clock, do your shift even if you were a creative person. Slowly, you’ve seen the emergence of getting out of your comfort zone, being a little bit more curious.

How has this changed design?

In the past, if you were designing (a car), you just looked at a hatchback or a sedan or an SUV. That was it. That was the brief. You looked at the trend in the industry, maybe some features. It was the big, broad brushstrokes, the exterior and a little bit, the interior. You didn’t get into these deep cuts about who is actually purchasing it. Now, we consider every last millimetre of the product. We think about how it’s gonna be used and who’s using it.

The fidelity of expectations and the fidelity of design has become so much higher and that’s why you’re seeing the splintering inside the design department into specialties. Not so long ago, one designer could pretty much cover every base within the brief. Now it’s very difficult, and so you have a very layered organisation.

Has automotive design moved from being functional to being part of a lifestyle?

We’re not designing the product, we’re designing the experience. A product like a car can be a necessity. I need to go to work. I need to take the kids to school. Or it might be a status symbol, in terms of how successful I am. But at the same time, it’s not just an appliance like your washing machine. So you really have to think about the experience—where does this thing fit into people’s lives and then design becomes quite sophisticated.

For the Tata Curvv, what were the design experiences you drew from?

The Curvv was designed first and foremost as an EV, and that’s what gave birth to the idea of a coupe because aerodynamics is a big theme. It’s all about efficiency…. The reality is we see it as a consumer electronics product not as an automobile. The gloss black cladding, the DRL lights… I always said in the brief that it has to look like a high-tech electronic device. We did a lot of analysis into product design, into how products are perceived, how they look, how they feel. Even the colours, there’s this baby blue, which was to communicate that this is a digital product; it’s not an analogue industrial car.

What would you say is your biggest influence?

For me, I’m inspired by architecture. I’m a big fan of it as a discipline, as a skill, and the more I observe it, the more I can appreciate distilling an idea or a theme down to its core single message. I’m always photographing buildings and so forth. I’m a big, big proponent of less is more design philosophy. I’m always looking at editing out unnecessary things. I believe simplicity is the key to a good design product. And not just visually, but also the function of it. I get that inspiration from just walking around different cityscapes.

Does this thinking also affect the materials you use?

Oh yes, definitely. We look at sustainability but also materials trends. In fashion, you see this return to authenticity. In general, materials are becoming more honest in that they don’t look like they’ve been processed in an industrialised fashion. I see a trend towards a raw, a certain imperfection.

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