Unfinished Conversations #3

Design is an attitude – and this comes about through conversations, arguments, trust and courage. What becomes visible in the end is the finished work, a product, an oeuvre. What is, however, no longer visible are the people who worked on it, who wrestled and fought for months and were convinced of the thing when it was still not real. It is, however, precisely these people whose skill lies in design. They are the ones who made the thing possible in the first place.

That is why we are continuing our series of conversations in which the invisible – the human being – is given a face. We don’t want to tell any success stories and we don’t want to recount what people often like to read about themselves. We do not want to provide any steadfast structures and conclusive explanations. What we want is to show what life is really like. What relationships are really like. Lively. Illogical. Volatile.

This book is, of course, also unfinished and it is an experiment. That is the way it is when you start an experiment with an unclear outcome.

At the same time, it is also a thank you – to all those people who have the courage to make our future visible with the help of design.

 

 

Luc Donckerwolke
Medium

Michael Keller
Regular

 

 

(Light pitter-patter of rain on the windshield … the seat moves)

Oh sorry, Luc. The seat is still adjusted to my body …

Let‘s look back at your beginnings – you first studied engineering before you discovered design. That course of study … did it prepare you for what was to come?

On my design studies course we worked at night. During the day we did the academic stuff and at night we drew. When I started at Audi after my studies in 1992, I didn‘t really know what it was like to be creative during the day. I was used to drawing at night – alone, without any noise.

That was my main problem – I had not been prepared to be creative during the day.

And was there anything else that posed a challenge for you after you had graduated?

Yes, of course. You always think design is actually a beautiful subject to study. What I didn‘t know, however, is that design only makes up five percent of the job. The actual daily work routine is 95 percent negotiating. And that was something I had not learned to do. During my studies, I had been trained to present my ideas. But I didn‘t know how to defend, sell or even follow up my ideas. The first sketch is important, but what comes after is even more important. The fight for every millimetre, the further negotiations, every day anew.

At the Parsons School of Design*1 they actually had a course that you couldn‘t pass until you had sold the product in New York. In another course, you had to stand on the stage in a large theatre with just a spotlight on you and a microphone in your hand and you had to practice talking about yourself.

The hemispheres of our brains work differently. If one side is rational and logical and the other emotional and intuitive – then we can count ourselves lucky and use both. Shouldn‘t we then, as designers, also get into other hemispheres, learn how hierarchies, sales systems or even tax returns work?

That‘s exactly the problem. If you want to be a designer who not only delivers ideas, but also realises them, you have to be an all-rounder: you have to be a diplomat, you have to become a fighter, you have to know about everything.

You have to be someone who pushes their limits beyond the creative. You need to know how to talk to both someone in marketing and someone in development. Once you have decided to further develop yourself, you need to be able to see all perspectives and be like a player in a game of chess.

Mike, you know it. You have designers who can be incredibly creative and have great ideas – but you know from the start that those ideas won‘t work. Because they weren‘t thought through. The concept may well be cool, but it‘s also naive. The picture is only complete when ideas have been thought through to the end – then all the perspectives are there.

So wouldn‘t it be good if engineers talked more to designers and designers more to engineers?

Most definitely. Back at the Art Center College of Design, I was told that being an engineer would limit my creativity. And I actually found that I wasn‘t able to compete with our ‘Blue Eyed Dreamers’ project. They did things that made you roll your eyes and ask yourself, “What‘s all this about? The thing can‘t be driven, never will be driven, and they tell you something about a structural, transparent form.” But I wouldn‘t have had my partner‘s confidence in my work if I had only adopted an artistic approach.

That is also the difference between an artist and a designer.

Exactly.

Luc, is it difficult to stay creative?

I love always being on the look-out for what we can do next. I am a searcher and it is the search that again and again gives me the drive for every project.

If that’s the case that you’re always looking for something – do you have a design style? And can that be possible, when you don’t know where your search is going?

I don’t think I have or need a design style. I always try to embrace a good proportion of emotions. First of all, you should try to get the proportions right, and then create something unusual out of them. When we have achieved something, I often try to break it.

For example, the V of the tail lights interrupts the elliptical shape of the Genesis X Speedium Coupe – it was very beautiful and I looked at it and at some point I thought it was actually too perfect. Then we decided against it.

Exactly the same with the window design. It was beautiful. I didn’t want a Hockey Stick*2 or a Hofmeister Kink*3, I didn’t want a Sweep*4 like the Tesla or Audi TT; and then I said we’ll do both. So a Hofmeister Kink together with the Sweep.

It’s actually more of a design process, because it’s all about having achieved something harmonious, you then have to break this harmony. Only then does something unusual and new emerge.

Harmony – that’s not just design, it’s also the interaction with the function?

Yes, absolutely. But not in the sense of «Form Follows Function». I believe function and form work together. The function must be guaranteed; but a car whose form is exclusively geared to function is not saleable. It has no emotion. That’s why it has to be a mixture of emotion and function. The function must always be guaranteed, but it must not override aesthetics and emotion. So actually it is a case of «Emotion merging with function».

We worked together at Kia, and it was back and forth between us all the time. My approach is to keep leaving something out until what you are creating looks back at you and says, “You can let me go now. You can send me out into the world.” Can you call that a design style, or is it more of a design process?

Exactly. That is what defines a design process – a development that ends with letting go.

You really can’t hand over the design process to someone else …

Can design then be democratic at all?

At some point a tough decision has to be made. You can’t please everyone. And you can’t always include the customer in the conversation, because he does not necessarily know what he will want in a few years time. He doesn’t have the necessary distance for that, because he also has a different perspective than we do.

For me it’s like this: You can try to understand where the customer is going, but you can’t make a customer-oriented design for the present. You can put yourself in his shoes, how he will be and thus find an additional perspective for him. Via the design we guide the customer to what he will need – that can’t be democratic.

That’s right – a fish cannot describe the water it swims in. I often experience that the customer believes that he is so creative and can participate in our work. And to this day that remains something strange to me, because we studied design and worked hard for so many years trying to make time and design interrelate. We know exactly whether something is a timeless design or not.

In our work as designers or creators, we live in a different time zone to other people. Marketing, sales – they are all living in the present. And they can’t imagine what things will be like in a few years. All of our design projects are always planned three years in advance, which means we’re used to thinking three years ahead into the future.

We can do it – they can’t do it. They can cultivate what is there, but they cannot invest in the future. That is the difference. That’s not arrogant, that’s not nasty, that’s just the way it is. If you deliver what the customer has now, it’s too late. Then it’s old. That’s why we need to be driven by the future. And that distinguishes us from the others.

(Michael hands Luc a Cola Light)

I always like to tell this rather naughty joke – sometimes marketing is like a dog. You ask him what he wants to eat tomorrow. And he replies: “Same as today, but more.” That’s nice, and it’s true – you can only imagine having more of everything, but you can’t invent a new recipe.

But, if they can’t invent a new recipe in marketing and sales … is growth even the right path for them?

No, I don’t think so. This is the problem that underlies every-thing. If you want growth, you make mistakes – you take the same recipe, but you can only achieve more quantity, not more quality. At some point, the portion no longer works. Because a portion always has a balance.

Now we’re back to harmony again – it’s about understanding relationships and the way they interact. We can compare it to cooking for friends at home or eating in the canteen – it’s just not the same. Just because it works at home doesn’t mean it will automatically work in the canteen.

If something works well with 20,000 cars, it won’t automatically work well with 100,000. As soon as you want more volume and growth, problems arise. Because you encounter new para-meters that you cannot always calculate.

I met star chef Daniel Humm*5 from Eleven Madison Park in New York. One of his signature dishes was Peking Duck, and people would come to the restaurant wanting to eat that duck. He sold 56,000 ducks a year, but at some point he asked himself how he could guarantee the quality of 56,000 ducks. With amounts like these, he didn’t know how they had been raised, how they had lived and what they had been fed.

At some point he lost track of the quality he had promised his guests. That’s why he changed his approach and now only cooks vegan – but here, too, the question arises of how to ensure quality when quantity dominates. In the case of seemingly endless growth, quality is simply limited. It doesn’t work.

That’s the point – but it actually works both ways. It doesn’t mean just because you have a certain volume, you can do smaller volumes. Small manufacturers want to produce more, large manufacturers want to produce less. It’s just not that easy.

(A gushing sound gets louder in the background,which then becomes quieter again …)

What does the design process look like for you? First you have to collect yourself – and then you look forward to the task …

We have many projects and each project is awarded to at least three studios on three continents. I prefer, however, to work with one person or at the most two people, because then I get the best result.

I have realised that I can never be in a room with more than 6+1 people. If there are more than six people in a room besides me, I no longer have the strength to embrace everything that is going on. However – I do believe in different disciplines and different people all within the space of one second. How are you with that?

I give precise instructions on how I want something. If several people are involved, I become vague and automatically lose it. And 80 percent of what I then get is not what I need. That’s why I really love small teams where everything is a bit tailor-made and a bit surgical. I’d rather have a short and intensive project than one that takes too long.

It’s exactly the same with me. In all my projects, as you know, I still don’t use a computer, I still draw and in the end I ask myself – What’s the idea? I’m analogue, but I live completely in a digital world. I don’t think that is contradictory. What is your relationship to the digital – is it alien or familiar to you?

I have no problem with the digital, on the contrary – we do everything digitally, and I personally have no problem with relying one hundred percent on the digital. However, the management has a problem with it. They have not learned how to view and assess the digital visualisation of a project. It takes experience to spot the flaws that you don’t see on the screen. You have to know where and when cheating was involved. It doesn’t matter whether it’s analogue or digital.

Don’t let the tools blind you. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a brand, a pencil or 3D data. I do my thinking in 3D. So the digital process in 3D is very good for me. As soon as I have the idea in 3D in my head, I can see immediately whether it can also be implemented in reality. I also need this process as I don’t want to spend much time on sketches – I’m different from you – you need to draw.

I want to see very quickly whether I can realise an idea and the digital process is perfect for that. It is only through this functional reference point that the idea can become a good design.

I know immediately – without spending a lot of money and without a model – if an idea will work. I didn’t even see the Genesis X Convertible Concept as a physical model. Nor the Genesis Essentia Concept. We realised all of these vehicle studies directly.

The crucial step is the switch from digital planning to analogue implementation. That moment … does it still surprise you?

No, I know what I’m going to see, but sometimes I am disappointed when I don’t feel the same emotions when I see something in reality. That’s a problem. That’s why I prefer to add a little more spice and then take it away later, if necessary – than the other way around. I always try not to be overly cautious in my approach. When we’ve designed something we love, we really overdo it. We know it will probably work, but at some point it’s that very exaggeration that shows us we did the right thing.

I like exaggeration, because if you can exaggerate something, at some point it will turn into an energetic abundance. You know – this profusion is very resilient, it is generous. You get energy back. What we both describe as exaggeration, that is love. I have three children with my wife and you can never give enough love. And by the way, it’s easier to give love than to receive it.

(Michael grins)

But I’m still in the learning phase on that … it’s still fresh.

Exactly.

For us, the analogue touch-point is the most important thing. This direct contact cannot be digitized. In life, when you first meet a person, the most important form of contact happens – with a sign – shaking hands. An analogue touch-point, so to speak. Is the person looking me in the eye? Is the handshake firm? Is there a smile? … or is he exactly the opposite? Every story begins with this moment for us, this is when the attitude of a company is expressed. You can’t calculate that digitally.

If this analogue moment is so important, can there then be a perfect size for a design studio?

I have a total of 19 design studios employing more than 1,000 designers – and there are also studios that are very small, like Genesis. It’s actually always the same people who work there. A lot of people working in different stages of the process, but I always rely on the same people and I have, what I call, my ‘killers’ for each brand.

Yes, your regular players. And then it gets big from that point. So in reality it is a small team that holds the big one together.

( … the pitter-patter on the windscreen has stopped … )

A friend of mine, Robert Wong, runs Google Creative Lab and always asks me how big we are and when I say we’ve grown by three people again, he says, “Oh, what a pity”. Because he believes that in a complex organisation like ours, you can’t manage more than 60 people. At some point there comes a moment when you can no longer reach the core, when you can no longer generate the energy.

I need a lot of people because there are specialists for every-thing – for headlights, for seats, for steering wheels. Our strength is a large number of specialists in the right positions. Look around you, in this car there is so much detail work and know-how …

So there are many different competencies in your design team, but the regular players are always the same.

Exactly … it’s the same as with you – your employee Rose is still with you. I’ve known her for 20 years and I still appreciate her.

When so many specialists work on one task, do we need design awards?

No, we don’t need them, because it’s unfair – usually only the design lead gets the award and not the team.

But we also have regular players in our team who become mentors for the others and train them. Luc, did you have a mentor?

I have had many mentors who were very talented, whether it was Walter Maria de Silva*6 or Gerhard Pfefferle*7. But the greatest mentor for me was Hartmut Warkuß*8. He was someone who taught me to feel that you can be a small family in a design studio.

All the others were great designers, but only one gave me the right attitude and that was Warkuß. And also Pfefferle. The main focus for the two of them was talent, the second equally important focus was on social skills, so that we as designers can work together at all.

For me, Warkuß is the greatest of them all. He always had this positive attitude. He often looked at a model and said a lot of good things about it. In doing so, he showed you how much potential the model still contained – and consequently, shortly after the presentation, you always thought that you had to redo everything.

That, however, was quite alright. He simply analysed and criticised in such an appreciative way that led to you being positively charged for the next step.

Take Giugiaro*9 , for example. What struck me … is that you show him your appreciation for his achievements. Although we only landed here yesterday from L.A., you are flying with him to Seoul tomorrow to thank him for his early days at Hyundai and continue the story …

The Pony Coupe Concept*10 was developed by Giugiaro in 1974 and is to this day relevant to Hyundai.

That’s what Warkuß got across to us – respect for the person and their talent. In interaction with the team, something unusual then emerges, and that has remained – from 1974 to 2023.

This special social competence that you mentioned is what makes a team. I noticed that you have a whole staff of co-workers around you who stand by you. Has it always been like that?

I didn’t know it before, but now this is the only way I can work as a designer. I didn’t have that at VW, for example, and that’s why I lost so much time because they did not give me enough space for design. I design a lot more now than before – and that’s really because of my team.

That’s the whole point – Hyundai hired me to gain from my expertise as a designer and as a creative person – and other companies didn’t take advantage of that. They overwhelm you with work and you’re no longer able to do your job.

I need my people who know the flight number for the right flight or who I can rely on to have my Diet Coke in my minibar when I get to my room at the hotel. People I can trust because they work well.

Luc, sometimes I just don’t understand how you do it. You get at least 35 e-mails per hour, work in three different time zones. Where do you get your strength from?

The only thing I do – every once in a while I block out every-thing and just focus on a single thing. I know I sometimes develop a kind of fire-fighter attitude. I solve the problem and only when the crisis is resolved am I able to focus on other things.

I can’t do multiple things at the same time; focus is the only way. My goal is to solve the crisis. That’s how my father was. He was the Red Adair*11 at the UN and I have the same attitude. Simply solving one crisis at a time. And that’s exactly what I like.

You are actually doing a three-dimensional crossword puzzle.

You really seem to be always going from one crisis to the next, do you still have some time for yourself?

It’s often convenient to be unavailable. I can’t do a thousand things at the same time, I have to focus. A crisis has to be 100 percent resolved. When I go home, I have to be able to say, “I think I saved it.” It’s also the case when I’m in the middle of a crisis, I can’t just say, “I’m going to take a break and go for a little drive.”

Now we are back again to where we started – further nego-tiation is what takes up 95 percent of my time and costs me strength. If I can design something, then the tension is released. I love building objects, virtual design, that’s what I enjoy the most.

Is there anybody that you would like to get to know, who is not a car designer?

Someone I would have liked to have met would have been Sir Peter Ustinov. I invited him to the Murciélago event on Etna in 2001; unfortunately, he could not come for health reasons. Not only would I have liked to get to know him, I would also like to be like him – someone who is at home everywhere, who has been accepted by every culture.

The Russians think he’s Russian; the English, that he is English; French people think he’s French – he’s just been adopted everywhere. He has such a positive vibe, but he can also be extremely sarcastic – but you can never be angry with him.

On the other hand, I’m also fascinated by evil. I know that the media always gives people different faces and twists their image. If we look at what is happening in the world right now, I would like to meet some political decision-makers in person.

I’m sure a lot of them seem extremely tough and in some ways extremely brutal, but I’m also sure that if you put yourself in their positions, in the culture and environment they live in, you’ll find out that their stories made them act that way.

No way am I trying to justify them, I am just saying that I don’t trust any media that tell me they are like that or like this, as most people in the media have never met them in person.

Yes, personal encounter is crucial to really get to know a person. I am with the International Patrons of the Pinakothek and have met, for example, Wolfgang Laib, Anselm Kiefer and Marina Abramovic. Every encounter was different than expected. I’m going to stick with your image of the spices – they almost all look the same when ground, but they open up a different world in terms of taste. And yes … not every spice goes with every food.

That’s how it is, the media is like a book of recipes. You can read a recipe book, but you cannot read the taste of the food in it.

You’ve probably moved house more times in your life than you have had birthdays, you speak seven languages. Is that why you place so much value on personal contact.

Once again – I think if you haven’t met someone personally, then that person will always remain the bad guy, because you can’t put yourself in their situation. He or she is the stranger. You have prejudices because you don’t know all the circumstances that made the person who he or she is.

You can only really understand a person when you have got to know them personally.

(The radio turns itself on automatically and announces a traffic jam)

The vehicle we are sitting in at the moment is not just a means of transport. Someone like me, to whom health is so important, is now asking the question – Couldn’t such a vehicle use an iris eye scan to tell the driver that he should be checked for this or that disease? Or inform him via a fingerprint check that his blood pressure is too high?

Yes, I’m interested in those things, too – we have systems for many cars that have a health monitoring option. They use the steering wheel to monitor fatigue, but also the driver’s heart rate. In many countries we have the problem that we are not allowed to use these systems for data protection reasons. I actually think that these systems are important as a lot of accidents happen because a lot of people are not capable of realising they’re no longer able to drive. The issue is particularly important when we talk about the modern cars of today, which release us, as independent drivers, from directly controlling the vehicle and thus allow us to drive without being very fit.

My mother is 85 and lives up on a mountain, there is no public transport. Does that mean that she should move out of the house now because she can no longer drive a car.

Is mobility not freedom – especially in old age?

We should actually be capable of building a car in which the assistance provided by the car’s systems increases with the state of the driver’s health. That’s the way the trend is going – building more and more cars that compensate for deteriorating or missing skills.

That is the vision of our chairman. He sees cars as robots that allow us to be active and mobile over a longer period of time. But it’s not the case of a robot doing something insanely different, it’s just a robotised vehicle. It actually all started with automatic transmission.

Having a visionary at the helm of a company makes a difference. And here we are back again to where we started – getting involved in thinking about the future requires a radical strategy – you have to be able to break the harmony there, too.

(Michael slows down … the car recharges itself)

Here I’m thinking of Patagonia, whose owner gave all his wealth to a foundation. The first thing you see when you enter the shops is a sign that says – Please consider getting your jacket repaired before buying a new one here. This attitude got me thinking. What do brands have to do today in order to be relevant in the future?

Sustainability is very important to me. In my opinion, there is no other way to do it than to ask about the social value. People have always identified with a brand and adopted its values. But the interests that determine the way a brand operates have changed.

Back then it was power, authority and technology that were the driving forces – today it is environmental friendliness or cultural promotion. The value promoted by this is respect for our survival as a global community. I don’t think we can survive if we don’t press ahead with those issues that are important to society and this has to be done with a certain seriousness. It can only work if you as a company or a brand embrace the issue yourself.

What we need for this is action. And there is a really big difference between talking about something and doing something. I also thought, “Come on, support Ukraine. People mean everything to you.” My wife worked at the train station in Munich for a non-profit organisation that helps to find guest families for the refugees and one evening there was still one woman with two children without accommodation. And then I got a call, “Can you get the children’s rooms ready in 25 minutes? I’m bringing a woman and two children home with me.”

We then shared our home and our life with them for five months. Once again I learned humility and gratitude. Sometimes all it takes is a nudge from outside – or in this case – from my wife.

Exactly. It doesn’t work if you hire someone else to do the job so that you can have a clear conscience. And if I may once again refer back to your question about the brand – it also has to be authentic for the brand. The product is actually the extended arm of a brand, and that is why it is so important which values it embodies. After all, it is at this point that the connection to the brand is established again. For this you need harmony.

What would you like to pass on to your children?

I think the most important thing is that you allow them to dream. For me, the worst thing is when parents don’t allow their kids to do crazy things. In my case, too, I think I bear a certain responsibility towards my son, because when he was twelve he said, “Zidane left school when he was nine, I want to quit school, too, and become a professional footballer.” At the time I said to him, that he could become a soccer player, but first he had to get through school successfully.

Now I often wonder whether I did the right thing, because he never became a soccer player. He is a good soccer player and an athlete. He recently took part in the 25-hour race in La Réunion and finished eleventh. Then you ask yourself – did I make a mistake? What if I had allowed him to drop out of school at the time? But that’s exactly the question – what would have happened, if …

Everything has a purpose. I don’t believe in mistakes. They are just variants, different ways of doing things. That’s how character develops.

I also started designing five years later than the others because I studied engineering first. I always think I have to support young designers and give them some reference points, but I have to let them work – they have to find their own way.

It’s simply important to give them confidence and let them dream. You have to know them very well to be able to say what is a serious issue for them and what is just a small dream that will quickly change.

Luc, to me you are the Jonathan Ive*12 of the automotive industry. For me, you are the most impressive designer in the highest position – regardless of the fact that to me positions are irrelevant.

I have the image of Steve Jobs in my head – he and Jonathan Ive were complementary minds who worked well together, and they created one of the most successful companies in the world. Why don’t outstanding and clever minds choose a sparring partner more often?

There are too many people who think they are Steve Jobs. What they don’t see, however, was that he was good because of Jonathan Ive. And Jonathan Ive was good because of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs made it because he had the right sparring partner.

The problem is – how do you find the right sparring partner in our industry? For example, let’s look at Elon Musk and Franz von Holzhausen*13 at Tesla. They are a team that works well; there is always a top manager and a designer – that is the recipe.

This is rare because there are many people who think they are more important, that they can do everything better and that they don’t need anyone else.

That’s a big problem in the automotive industry – many board members think they know better than the designers. I need to know where my own area of expertise is, and when to put all my trust in someone else, when to rely on them to deliver, and when to allow myself to be surprised. That’s something that rarely happens.

Once we happened to be on a plane to Seoul together and you were drawing and sketching all night. Your eyes lit up … it was a moment of happiness for you, wasn’t it ?

It’s funny how you always question yourself, “Am I still any good? Can I still do that?” And that moment is then a confirmation that tells me, “Yes, I can still do it.”

If it works, then that’s the moment you think, “I’m useful.”

(The two have arrived at Luc’s garage, and yes … if they hadn’t had the conversation in Michael’s car, this book wouldn’t have come into existence.

Luc had initially offered Michael a phone interview between 5:00 and 7:00 in the morning on the way to Frankfurt, but Michael then felt like meeting in person … )