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Uzone.id — BMW, Bayerische Motoren Werke, clearly organizes its car-design process. From sketches to the final model, BMW continues to create iconic designs on each of its latest cars.
Designworks, located in Los Angeles, Munich, and Shanghai, is where all of BMW’s creative product ideas are born. BMW’s unique look expresses the latest technology with a design that continues to focus on iconic features with an added contemporary twist that still incorporates its historical roots.
The design process always begins with a workshop where the vehicle’s character is defined. This is followed by a briefing on aesthetics, technology, and aerodynamics to the designers. It then ends with a wide range of sketches from around the world.
The BMW Group’s concept cars and vision vehicles are unique prototypes that symbolize the future of design and the driving experience. Their styling continues to reflect product and brand innovation.
BMW’s goal is to create functional designs that generate an engaging experience for all the senses and create an emotional connection between the object and the customer.
The magic of Designworks
BMW Group subsidiary Designworks is a creative consultancy responsible for many of the prototype graphic designs of BMW products.
The creative studio was founded in 1972 as an independent design studio in a garage in Malibu by American industrial designer Chuck Pelly. The first collaboration with BMW took place in 1986 for the BMW 850i seats.
1993, Designworks began its first exterior design project for the BMW 3 Series. Then, in 1995, the BMW Group acquired a 100 percent stake in the design company. It would exclusively work on designs for BMW and a few external clients.
Designworks has developed concepts for seating furniture, airplanes, subways, bicycles, boats, sporting goods, air taxis (eVTOL), agricultural and forestry machinery, and hyperloop, a high-speed passenger and freight transportation system.
How Designworks works has proven to be a win-win for the BMW Group and its brands. Designworks’ experience from other industries broadens the BMW Group’s horizons to include a cross-mobility perspective.
On the other hand, Designworks leverages the BMW Group’s expertise in premium mobility, bringing a holistic perspective to external projects.
Designworks always come into play when a perspective calls for unconventional thinking. To ensure that the team never runs out of innovative ideas, Designworks nurtures a culture of creative friction. By accepting friction as part of the creative process, the team consciously invites creative tensions that must be explored, examined, and resolved.
BMW design hallmarks
The BMW emblem first appeared in late 1917, when the company was still called Rapp Motorenwerke. The colors of the company’s home state of Bavaria were then incorporated into the company logo.
However, since local trademark laws at the time prohibited the use of state emblems or other sovereign symbols in commercial logos, Rapp Motorenwerke ended up using the pattern and colors of the Bavarian flag in an inverted arrangement.
Over time, BMW continued to upgrade its design, changing the thickness of colors and fonts while maintaining its original design.
Since 1933, almost all BMW front ends have had a front kidney grille with a design that has changed over time. The grille has become a distinctive brand identity of BMW.
The BMW 303 model is a milestone in BMW’s history. First, it was the company’s first six-cylinder model mid-size sedan. It became the first vehicle to have a pair of kidney grilles at the front of the car.
As history continued, the mid-range model of the ‘new class’ marked a turning point in BMW production, from technical to commercial to brand design. This included the two-kidney grille design, which, for the first time, was placed between two car-wide horizontal grilles.
A new leap in the evolution of the kidney grille occurred in 1990. In the third generation of the BMW 3 series, the kidney grille was positioned horizontally, flat, and not too wide. This design influenced subsequent models until the first two generations of the BMW X5.
Most recently, the design of the BMW X3 with the large kidney grille at the front is a visual evolution of its predecessor. The vertical and diagonal bars add striking accents. Coupled with the contour lighting surrounding the two kidney grille elements, it exudes confidence.
