WINDOWS TO THE WORLD OF JAGUAR DESIGN

In these days of computer‑aided design, it’s all too easy to think that cars like the Jaguar C‑X75 hybrid supercar come to life on some super‑sized computer screen, writes Hugo Nightingale, Senior Designer, Jaguar Cars.

Fact is, the Jaguar design team produced well over 500 different sketches – in every medium, from pencil, to ball‑point, to crayon, to paint – before the final shape of the C‑X75 came even close to being approved.

We know from talking to fellow designers that at some companies, car design can be a rather cold, soul‑less and over‑technical process. Yet here at Jaguar, it is all about emotion, artistry and craftsmanship; always has been that way and always will be in the future.

So when Jaguar was asked to take part in the Clerkenwell Design Week in central London last week, we sat down and thought about how we could best illustrate the very art of designing a car.

Naturally we wanted to showcase our C‑X75 concept, especially after it received a production go‑ahead earlier this month. The fact is that since its unveiling at the Paris motor show last September, it’s been the talk of the car design community.

But around the car, we wanted some kind of display that would depict the design process, from those first sketches to the production of the show concept. A series of pretty photos just wasn’t going to cut it.

We came up with the idea of creating a series of eight design windows, each around six and a half feet long and 15 inches deep and built in the shape of the famous Jaguar Heritage “lozenge” logo.

The fun part was deciding which elements would go into each window. The first one, showcasing the inspiration behind the C‑X75 was easy: photos and sketches of the legendary 1966 Jaguar XJ13 mid‑engined racecar, which is still arguably the most beautiful Jaguar ever created.

In another “window”, we showed some of those original 500 sketches our design team produced, and in the colors‑and‑materials display we included such innovative materials as the micro‑mesh we used to cover the audio speakers and the padded white ceramic leather we used for the headlining.

For another, we gave a rare glimpse of the complex process of actually building the concept, with photography showing the car slowly coming together.

The Clerkenwell Design Week crowd, made up mostly of product designers, graphic designers, architects, design students and the general public, certainly seemed to enjoy the display and the chance to get up‑close to the C‑X75.

But perhaps more than anything, the display reminded me and the entire design team that, at Jaguar, the computer is no substitute for the creative joy we get from simply taking out a pad and pencil and sketching cars.