Nakajima

One of the graduates working at Toyota came to my high school and gave a presentation about designing cars as a job. I was really impressed with the car rendering he showed us and thought, “Wow, that’s what I want to do.” Then I applied to Toyota.

Nakajima

We have 1,200 people in design departments across the globe, including modelers. Our Vision Design Division is in charge of overall planning and creation of advanced models. Then, our in-house vehicle development companies are responsible for turning them into products.

Nakajima

Although we won’t know any actual trends until a few years later, strangely enough the world’s car designers are often in sync when it comes to ideas and tastes.

Since we all draw on the same basic information, standard research usually leads to a plan that closely matches what everyone else is thinking.

For Toyota to maintain as a distinctive brand, it’s vital to envision how new features can be styled to exceed expectations. We keep asking ourselves what makes Japanese cars and Toyota unique and try to express that together with our visions.

Nakajima

The president’s call to “make ever-better cars” was a wake-up call. I felt like we were asked an essential question—what sort of cars would such cars be?

Nakajima

We base our designs on our dreams of what future cars should look like, with the underlying condition that we are working to make customers happy, not to be self-indulgent.

With that in mind, we can get a more concrete idea of the right direction by exploring what sort of cars would fulfill the dreams of our families and others close to us.

Nakajima

Coming up with ideas requires constant and diverse inputs, including intangible concepts and user psychology. The same is true for modeling, in which serendipity is created through experimentation and mistakes, and lessons accumulated through experience.

We are constantly analyzing and exploring in a genchi genbutsu (go see for yourself) style, driven by an interest in the natural world, other products, and the power of serendipity.

Nakajima

Such exploration was already being done by my predecessors when I joined the company. One designer would even go into the mountains to sketch cool-looking tree root shapes to adapt it for a car’s front design. I believe this accumulation of inputs remains as important as ever, even if the times and tools change.

Nakajima

Overseas, we even discussed how cool the reflections looked in a city. Many European buildings are made of beige-colored stone, which contrasts strongly against a blue sky.

This was another thing I learned through experiencing genchi genbutsu. In Japan, meanwhile, the buildings are grey, so naturally the body colors that look good in cities are different from Europe.

Nakajima

I always tell students who aspire to be designers that Toyota is looking for more than just car design.

The range of fields is extensive, from textile design to computer-based graphic design. What’s needed now is the ability to consider the value of the customer experience and imagine what can be done with the car.

Design at Toyota is about studying people and providing new human-centered values. It’s about using all your senses to design the interactions between people and cars, or people and cities, and find ways to convey and reinforce such ideas with visuals. We are in an age where broad interests are more important than knowledge alone.