Text/Figure Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Qi Yaoqi
From the Central Academy of Fine Arts to the University of Applied Sciences in Pforzheim, from Shanghai Pan-Asia to Porsche in Germany... As a young designer born in 1991, Guo Jiayi's excellent automotive design ability is one of the few in the industry. At the end of 2020, he returned to his birthplace of Guangzhou after more than 5 years of overseas work and joined the GAC Research Institute to participate in the interior design of a new round of production cars and concept cars. Over the past year, Guo Jiayi has continuously contributed wisdom to concept cars and mass production cars, and at the Guangzhou Auto Show at the end of last year, he attracted the attention of many parties with GAC Concept Car TIME. A few days ago, the Yangcheng Evening News reporter interviewed the young designer and learned about his growth code.
Show promise
In 2009, Guo Jiayi was admitted to the photography major of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. But a year later, he moved to the Department of Transportation Design. "I want to be able to make something that's real and can affect my life, like a car." Guo Jiayi said that he learned from the basic design process and eventually turned each idea into a delicate sketch and model.
In order to understand the latest trends and market demand, in her junior year, Guo Jiayi chose to intern in a company. He started at Pan Asia Automotive Technology Center Co., Ltd. in Shanghai as a design intern on a concept project. There, he mastered the process of professional car design and was exposed to novel designs at home and abroad. After that, he went to the United States Johnson Controls Co., Ltd., one of the world's largest independent suppliers of automotive components and seats, focusing on automotive interior design.
The accumulation of practice soon made Guo Jiayi emerge. CDN China Automotive Design Competition is one of the most authoritative and gold-bearing events in the field of domestic automotive design, and in two consecutive competitions in 2013 and 2014, Guo Jiayi won the championship, a record that has not been broken so far. It was also since then that he was "targeted" by the domestic automotive design circle.
Why is he the champion? Guo Jiayi's answer is that imagination is very important, but the shape design should be both practical and functional, just like a person must have a soul, and it is not enough to pursue a beautiful shape.
Famous enterprises are invited
In 2016, Guo Jiayi decided to go to the University of Applied Sciences in Pforzheim, Germany, to pursue a master's degree. The university's automotive design strength is well-known in the world, many well-known car companies regard it as the most important source of talent, and the campus is surrounded by design and development centers of famous car companies including Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.
During graduate school, Guo Jiayi's portfolio of works was also favored by the heads of the exterior and interior departments of Renault in France. For half of the six months that began in March 2017, he spent half of his time in the exterior design department at Renault's headquarters and the other half in the interior department. At Renault, Guo Jiayi participated in the design bid for the production car Correga and was selected.
In September 2017, Porsche interior designers visited the school to visit the exhibition of works, and when they saw Guo Jiayi's works, they refused to leave for a long time. Soon, Guo Jiayi entered Porsche as an intern and became the only winner of the next generation Cayenne model 1:1.
After graduating from graduate school in August 2018, Guo Jiayi officially joined Porsche and became a designer in the forward-looking interior design department. It is reported that at the Porsche Weissach design and development headquarters, there is an elite team of about 20 designers responsible for the appearance and interior design of all Porsche product lines. On average, every 2-3 years, the team recruits a new designer with extremely strict criteria. Guo Jiayi became the team's only Chinese designer.
From 2017 to the end of 2020, Guo Jiayi was involved in numerous design work at Porsche: porsche Mission R, Porsche Vision GT and a blockbuster production model that is still in the stage of secrecy development, all of which provided a highly creative interior design.
Return to your hometown
In the 2020 global outbreak, Guo Jiayi worked from home in Germany. During this period, after in-depth exchanges between Guo Jiayi and the design team from the GAC Research Institute, the idea of joining GAC came to mind.
"Domestic new energy vehicles have sprung up, and there is huge room for growth. In contrast, germany's traditional luxury cars are more conformist, and the intensity of innovation and change is much smaller. I want more room for growth. Talking about the idea of returning to China, Guo Jiayi said that foreign automobile design has a long history, and design elements have been refined after a hundred years of accumulation. Most of the domestic car companies into the market time is relatively short, although it is difficult to have a classic design that can impress people, but "light loading" is also an advantage, the current design of domestic new energy vehicle companies has been comparable to the foreign level.
In 2021, Guo Jiayi joined the Concept and Styling Design Center of GAC Research Institute and participated in the interior design of a new round of mass production vehicles and concept cars. In November of the same year, the GAC Concept Car TIME, which shined at the Guangzhou Auto Show, received great attention for its unconventional design full of artistic sense and technology. And this design is from Guo Jiayi's hand.
At present, the mainland has deeply implemented the strategy of strengthening the country with qualified personnel in the new era, cultivated, introduced, and made good use of talents in an all-round way, and accelerated the construction of the world's important talent centers and innovation highlands. Founded in 2006, GAC Research Institute has created an international R&D talent team of more than 4,300 people from 15 countries and regions around the world. Among them, the design team of GAC Motor has completed the layout of the global design innovation system of "two countries and three places" in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Los Angeles, and is currently preparing to build the GAC European Forward-looking Design Center, and initially selected the site as the capital of art and design, Milan.
Under the guidance of the "design-driven" strategy, THE DESIGN TEAM OF GAC has continuously produced innovative achievements with world-class standards. Design mass production car works such as GAC Trumpchi GS4, GS8, GA8, M8, Shadow Leopard and GAC Aion AION S, AION LX, AION V, etc.; concept car works such as ENVERGE, ENO.146, ENPULSE, etc., have produced extensive influence in the world.
Guo Jiayi said frankly: "I deeply feel that Chinese design is not worse than foreign countries, and it will be better than them in the future." This is also the mission of our designers. New energy vehicles pull everyone back to the same starting line, many of our new models of product strength and interaction design is more advanced than Europe, I believe that our car design can completely surpass them. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | Sun Qiman