‘CMF: 2030 Family’ is a project created by Alicia Rudeck during her time as Envisage’s Colour, Materials and Finish (CMF) intern. She has analysed what family mobility will look like in the coming years, in terms of interior and exterior CMF. Since finishing her internship Alicia has joined Envisage permanently as Junior CMF Designer.
Four personas were created by Alicia for this project: a petrolhead father interested in performance; a practical mother wanting simplicity; an environmentally aware, vegan daughter; and a small child needing safety and entertainment. From the brief she identified that this project needed to be innovative. Alicia questioned “How can I make a vehicle interior and exterior look innovative and inviting for the consumer? How can I make it interesting for families while keeping practicality in mind?”
The Inspiration
To start making decisions on interior colour and material splits, Alicia produced mood boards for inspiration. She created three specifications – base, sport, and premium. “For the base spec I chose nature, there were elements from product design, cork, the natural shape of things like honeycombs and leaves; anything that brought those elements together for an aesthetic collage.” She continued, “for the sport specification I looked at ‘energy’ so, elements of sport, basketballs, trainers; items that would bring inspiration of being active but remembering to pull it away from traditional car racing design language. The premium mood board, was more lifestyle based, where I took wearable products like watches, jewellery, clothing, and car interiors – material things the human eye associates with a luxury lifestyle.”
The Base Specification
The colour and material choices were tailored to each specification; for the base concept colour scheme, she chose greens with hints of orange, cork as a feature material, and a green paint with fine yellow flakes to create a contrast between the interior and exterior colour composition. “For the base and sport concepts I picked uncommon materials for car interiors, I thought it was important to do something progressive that can amplify sustainability and innovation, so for the base concept I used cork, a material with many applications and environmental benefits in the centre console and doors, which would also improve acoustics within the interior.”
The Sport Specification
Alicia’s project highlighted to her the importance of lifestyle and what designers can do to accommodate that. On the dashboard, centre console and doors in the sport concept she chose recycled rubber to relate back to trainers and sporting equipment as a sustainable alternative that is still modern and familiar. The colours for the Sport concept were influenced by the ocean, giving an alternative palette of blues and yellows, compared to more commonly used red and black. Alicia explored an accent colour to bring speed and motion to the interior, with a feature grey paint for the exterior. She commented, “The sport paint is my favourite, because of its mysteriousness. It is grey but with blue flakes that can only be seen in certain lighting, having it occasionally hint at the immersive blue and yellow interior.”
The Premium Specification
Finally, the premium concept was made to be monochromatic with a deep purple paint, staying consistent from interior to exterior. Referencing heritage Alicia decided on more traditional materials and applications, opting for a suede-like material on the dashboard, centre console, and doors to highlight touchpoints and a luxury, crafted concept. For the colour scheme she explained, “the premium started with a modern, very delicate pink and rose gold that then turned into a dark interior for a moodier concept associated with richness and depth, a dark luxury to be more progressive. It evolved into something completely different from the initial idea, but the rose gold remained to uplift the interior.”
The Envisage CMF Team works with clients from a variety of industries, tailoring projects to their needs and desired outcome, offering creative advice with support from in-house Paint Development Department and Trim Studio. Through this project we get a real insight of the services Envisage offers. Alicia commented “For my project it was really exciting to be able to develop custom colours for the exterior paint of the concepts, having everything developed in-house meant that I could follow closely all the stages of the process, which was an amazing experience! Our CMF studio also has a large materials library with so many innovative choices, so it was great to work in a setting filled with so many design opportunities. The in-house Trim Shop have supported me too in showing how small details like stitching and piping can add to the concepts. It really proves that the attention is in the detail. I’m very excited about my new role as Junior CMF Designer here at Envisage, being able to keep exploring different concepts and working with the different departments for future CMF projects.”
For more information about what Envisage could do for you, contact Nicky Fox (nfox@envisagegroupltd.com), or visit the CMF, Trim and Paint pages on the website.
