What do a chaise-lounge (above), a boat, a table football game and a guitar have in common? Apart from the fact you won’t be able to fit any of them in their brand new super vehicle, the Ford GT, they are in fact the imaginations of Ford’s design team.
Given free reign to design and re-imagine everyday products, Ford design teams from around the globe were able to forget their normal remit and go beyond automotive design to create products that showcase their prowess as a design company and their innovative research tools. At the world’s most prestigious international design expo, Salone del Mobile exhibition in Milan, Ford unveiled the beautifully sleek modern lines of everyday objects redefined.
Incredibly the design team are now using eye-tracking technology to collect data about what bits of the car we love and perhaps more importantly to them, we hate. They’re collecting biometrics to see what turns us on and off about their products. Sounds a little Big Brotherish? It’s all for us as customers I’m assured. As consumers, we’ve never been so choosy and a brand’s place in the world is no longer a given. There are many competitors in this crowded space. We as consumers want perfection. We want more bang for our pound. We want connectivity and we want it now.
With technology becoming an ever increasing factor in our lives, as newspapers and traditional magazines give way to digital offerings, as MP3s give way to streaming and Netflix looks more and more attractive than Network TV, Amko Leenarts, Global Interiors Design Director suggests that in the near future that touch-screen technology and tablet incorporation could feature. The car is your personal space for you to connect with. Where before automotive designers were looking to perhaps build a car we could age happily in, the design pulse is modern, it’s millennial, it’s generation Z.
