At the sidelines of Auto Expo 2010,
the 4th Styling and Design Conclave 2010 was organised
by SIAM’s Styling and Design Group – the body
that looks after issues covering vehicle styling aspects and its changing
status in India. It has been observed that the
awareness of the Indian customer is aligned to those across the globe and the
Indian customers have become increasingly demanding in terms of product design and
technology.
The event was divided in three
sessions; the speakers sharing their views on the direction and pace of the
automotive design in India and the direct and indirect factors
influencing the developments. Since automotive design is at an embryonic stage
in India, there were also talks about having
a focus on achieving accelerated efforts in automotive design, much like what
has been managed by Korea.
Dr Pawan Goenka, President SIAM & President Mahindra
& Mahindra, welcomed the gathering through his
address and laid emphasis on automotive design being a form of art more than
anything else. He pointed out that in its tenth year, the Auto Expo has been
witness to no less than ten global launches in addition to a number of concept
vehicles being showcased. This, he said, puts immense importance on the
automotive designers as global automotive players are actively looking at India, not only as a production hub for
their products, but also as a key area to establish and operate their design
facilities.
Mr Gerry McGovern, Design Director,
Land Rover in his keynote address on automotive design, explained the meaning
of ‘design’, Mr McGovern said that a design should be
able to gain immediate recognition and connect with the consumer at some level.
The chief guest for the event, Dr Satya Narayan Dash, Secretary,
Ministry of Heavy Industries, congratulated SIAM and Styling and Design Group for
establishing Styling and Design Conclave as one of the most important events
and laid emphasis on the importance of design in as equal a measure as is on
fuel efficiency, ergonomics and other vehicular elements. He recognized the
fact that design capability in India is rather limited but assured that the
government will act to the best of its capability in bringing up the design
competence.
Mr Siddhartha Lal,
in his keynote presentation, explained how style supported Royal Enfield in
establishing the company’s identity. He emphasised
that the design is significantly philosophy adopted by Royal Enfield is
radically different from the motorcycles that cater to the commuter segment of
the Indian motorcycle market.
Mr K Saito, Chief Designer, Motorcycle
Division, Honda R&D India (P) Ltd. Talked about how Honda incorporates
styling elements based on customer’s needs.
Mr B Bhaumik,
Sr. Vice President, Mahindra & Mahindra, talked about the need to differentiate between
brands and pointed out that with increasing competition Indian OEMs will have
to depend more and more on styling to woo customers.
Mr Craig Cather,
President and CEO, CSM Worldwide, explained how the automotive segments will
evolve during the period leading to 2016 and how issues like environment,
climate change and other factors are going to influence our vehicle design and,
consequently, the styling.
The addresses by the experts present
at the Styling and Design Conclave were followed by a prize distribution
ceremony. Present at the ceremony were jury members C V Raman, Chief General
Manager, Maruti Suzuki Ltd, B Bhoumik,
Sr. Vice President, M&M, Anil Saini, GM, India
Design Studio and Pierre Castinel, Design Director, Tata Motors.
A design called ‘Flux’, created by Neeraj Pathak of NID Ahemadabad, bagged the first prize. Second prize was won by
Chacko Ebrahim of IIT Delhi who created ‘Vayu’ as his design effort. Occupying the third place was
the team of Shantanu S Joshi and Ketan
M Chaturmutha of IIT Guwahati
who gave their creation brand name of Figo. Gaurav Jain and Saurabh Patwardhan of MIT Pune received special mention by bagging the Jury award for
their model – Zygote.
Dr C V Raman, in his concluding
address congratulated the prize winners and spoke of the importance of design
in today’s world. He specifically marked out the desperate need to enhance
design capabilities in order to develop betters vehicles for tomorrow that
would in turn lead to a better environment and living qualities. He expressed
heartfelt appreciation to all the dignitaries for sharing their professional
views and talking about ways to enhance the entire capsule of automotive
design.
Dr Raman also said that there is a
conscious effort towards initiating workshops with several educational
institutions in India that would allow for better
automotive designs to come to fore.
RSVP:
Arnab Chakraborty
SIAM
Ph: +91 11 47103010
arnab@siam.in
Sandipan / Avishek
Hanmer MS&L
+91 9811924919/ 9818848748
sandipan@hanmermsl.com
avishek@hanmermsl.com