Interview

What is important in color design?

Nissan’s Global Design Center develops designs for cars that we plan to sell in Japan and in other countries around the world. First, we establish our target users precisely and imagine concrete information about their lifestyles and values, while cooperating with teams working on the interior, exterior, and other parts to raise ideas, aiming for a car that is attractive from each team’s perspective.
Color design is the job of coordinating everything in the color, materials, and textures of the interior down to the finest level, and what is particularly difficult is conveying my own ideas to other people properly. I feel that it is important to convey them in a way that ensures an accurate understanding by everyone involved, each of whom has their own perspective, from my boss and the other members of my team, of course, through the people in the planning departments and design sections, up to the various external suppliers. The methods used to verbalize elements related to sensibility and to convey them depend on the designer. Besides design itself, communication is also an important job.

What kinds of characteristics does color design have at Nissan?

Through my internship at Nissan, I was highly impressed not only by the level of design creativity, but also by the way that design is conducted through cooperation by people from many countries, which led me to decide to join the company. When I actually started at Nissan, it felt as though I had stepped into a foreign land. I feel that the ability to encounter information about various countries, not just Japan, and to be involved with vehicles from a wide range of segments produces an alluring environment that expands my point of view as a designer.
Also, making cars that offer excitement, not just comfort, to the people riding in them is another characteristic of Nissan’s car manufacturing. Working on car design often tends to mean designing for people who “love cars,” but I am trying to create designs that I feel present an attractive interior, in order to excite customers who are not that interested in cars, too.