I work on user growth, user operation, and UXD in Internet companies, and do research on the history and culture of automobiles in my spare time. My contact information is at the end of the article, interested friends can communicate more. The Little Red Book and Zhihu are the two poles of the world. Knowing that rationality has reached the extreme, keen on logical reasoning and raising bars; the little red book is emotional to the extreme, life is so beautiful and beautiful, gather the beauty, go to buy and buy together.
Little Red Book is a platform that is extremely sensitive to color and shape. Pantone has just announced that the 2022 pop color is Very Peri periwinkle blue, and Very Peri is like a snowflake falling on the earth in an instant. As an amateur researcher of car culture & design trends, I have recently paid a lot of attention to the car planting of Little Red Book, and there have been many unexpected discoveries. For example, if you search for forgiveness green and nuclear energy yellow, see what can come out?
This can also understand why there are 64-color atmosphere lights on the new Lexus NX, and the younger sister attaches more importance to the sense of ceremony and atmosphere than the straight man imagines.
Or back to the point of this article: there are many people who plant grass Lexus on the Little Red Book. "Good looking" is the main keyword, which makes lexus user composition change.
Seven years ago, it was hard to imagine that Lexus would have so much discussion in the community of young women. Seven years later, this phenomenon happened. This change is caused by styling, but the reverse is also reinforcing Lexus' more enthusiastic design trend. I flipped through the American version of Quora's discussion of Lexus 7 years ago.
One question on Quora is: Who is designing Japanese cars? Why is it so difficult to make something beautiful? (Who is designing Japanese cars?) Why is it so hard to create a good-looking car? A Japanese-American college student named Chida Yuta replied.
In Japanese car industries, designers are weaker than that of other country's, especially Italy, German or France. (In the Japanese auto industry, designers have a lower status than In Italy, Germany, or France.) ）I've been told that "European cars are created by designers, while Japanese cars are built in a meeting" which is usually a matter of COSTS, SAFETY, FUEL EFFICINSY. Also, in these meetings many of the executives hesitate to create something new. They are afraid of NEW and UNIQUENESS, especially in visual creativity. (People tell me that European cars were created by designers.) The Japanese car was created by the meeting, and the theme of the meeting was cost, safety, and fuel consumption. In meetings like this, executives are hesitant to create something new. They are terrified of new, unique, and especially visual innovations. In order to change this phenomenon, President Akio Toyoda personally characterized and promoted the design direction, giving the designer enough endorsement and space from the first position. In today's Lexus system, the status of designers has changed historically, and engineers need to do their best to meet the needs of designers.
I have a Tsinghua disciple Feng Chao who used to work at The Toyota Lexus North American Design Center Incalty. He is now the chief designer of the Didi D1. He says working at Lexus is an extremely honing experience. Lexus does not allow mediocre design, does not allow repetitive design, and the company pursues uniqueness up and down. But you have to consider how hard it is for the automotive design industry to develop over the centuries, and thousands of designers work day and night to draw pictures and find unique beauty.
"Lexus designers are not a romantic job, smoking, coffee, staying up late... That's everyday. "So, the same luxury brand, someone said Lexus matryoshka dolls? Nothing. Lexus doesn't imitate any brand, it doesn't even imitate itself. Each Lexus model has a unique shape, and even the interior has its own theme and positioning. That's what a luxury brand with a "design" label should insist on. Next, we will talk about the details of the latest new generation of Lexus NX.
Seven years ago, Nobuyuki Tomatsu, manager of Lexus' design department, said: "The first task of the original Lexus NX design was to attract everyone's attention. "The original NX designed a sharp body surface with the Inner Bullet concept at a time when most cars were still using lines as the main modification.
Designers defined the car's portrait as a "lightweight boxer," which requires lines, explosiveness, sharpness, and agility. This provided a lot of inspiration for the design of NX production vehicles. Today, Lexus Design Minister Kenichi Suga, when talking about the new generation of Lexus NX, the most used word is "concise". The so-called simplicity here is not the "minimalist" style popular in the design of new energy vehicles nowadays. Refer to the previous lexus LF-Z Electrified concept car released by Lexus, which is not lacking in detail. The new generation of NX is based on the concept of "Vital xTech Gear". The concept combines elements of "Vital" and "Tech". Retain the sharpness of the Inner Bullet, but remove the "cold" or even slightly lethal feeling and add vitality, temperature, and confidence to the design expression.
Front face
1. The focus of the "visual simplicity" of the front face - the boundary decoration of the spindle intake grille is cancelled, and the detailed beam design is cancelled, and the grille pattern adopts a three-dimensional effect of the longitudinal U-shaped block. 2. The angle of the intake grille is more vertical to the ground, and the bottom is opened with a slit-like opening to improve the heat dissipation performance. 3. The L-type daytime running lights and three LED light beads are integrated, with black as the background color, which enhances the stretch of the headlight profile to the side, as if the liquid overflows with tension.
side
1. Compared with the original NX, in the case of increased length, width and wheelbase, the height of the body has decreased, bringing a more visually smooth sense of movement. 2. With the sharpness of the surface preserved, the ductility is increased by reducing the inverse R surface. The new surface is more stretched, mainly to create a sense of volume and strength for the four wheels.
1. Extend the curved direction around the rear wheels to give the rear wheels a stronger sense of standing. 2. The biggest highlight of the tail design is the use of through-type taillights, flanked by Lexus' iconic L-shaped light groups, and a simple light bar in the middle of the tailgate, which is more recognizable than the simple and rough through-line design. 3. The rear of the new NX does not have the Lexus logo, but changes to lexus spelling in English.
Let's look at the interior.
In 2019, Lexus proposed the "Tazuna Concept" for the first time on the LF-30 concept car, which means "the reins of the rider to convey instructions to the horse", which is a metaphor for further enriching the driving pleasure through more efficient human-vehicle communication, including the interior design.
The interior section of the new generation of NX is the first time Lexus has applied this concept, separating the driving area from the sitting area, with a very different design starting point on both sides. The driver's side is mainly to create a sense of concentration of the driver's line of sight, to avoid setting too many complicated buttons and knobs in the driver's line of sight sliding trajectory, the driver can smoothly and naturally move the line of sight from the head-up display to the dashboard or center display, reducing distraction during driving. On the passenger side, the main thing is to create a relaxed and comfortable feeling.
The atmosphere lamp that the little sister pays attention to also basically follows this principle. There's a discipline called color psychology, and the reason engineers spend a lot of man-hours styling theme colors is because colors can really affect mood and decision-making.
Colors in nature that are too saturated are brilliant with a sense of impact, but most of the time they mean danger; colors with low saturation, soft with a sense of intimacy, generally represent protective colors. The low-saturation light effect of the halo will appear soft, which is the principle that friends who like photography understand. In particular, the little sister of the Little Red Book has a no less understanding of lighting and angle than that of a photographer. Of course, if there is a good name, it is better, which helps to enhance the "literary" atmosphere.
Isn't it more understandable why Lexus can attract the attention of Little Red Book Sister? Performance parameters are to the little sister what lipstick numbers are to straight men. But design is different, design can convey emotion, personality. Anyone through the design can feel who the model wants to hit. Among the many models, the young and individualistic little sister can easily get which one is the target she wants to be.
Design is particularly important in this era of appearance. And the design story related to design is even worse. Friends who like design and culture are welcome to communicate.