Mazda Art Car
winner
I won 2nd place in a design competition for an art wrap for the Mazda CX-3, which premiered at the 2016 Washington D.C. Auto Show.
summary
For the competition, Mazda specified that they wanted the submitted art wraps to follow their design theory ‘KODO — soul of motion’.
KODO
the characters for KODO from Mazda
what is KODO?
“To sum up what we mean by KODO Design, it’s about creating cars that embody the dynamic beauty of life — cars that visually suggest different expressions of this energy. In Japan, we feel that craftsmen inject life into what they make, so objects that receive the love and caring attention of these craftsmen have a vital force; a soul. As we are a Japanese car company, we believe that a form sincerely and painstakingly made by human hands gets a soul.”
— Ikuo Maeda, Executive Officer and General Manager Design Division
KODO and the CX-3
“With the CX-3, we avoided adding excessive complex curves, instead we used a single, flowing line to express dynamism. [It looks] pure and refined, with a great feeling of energy. [The model embodies] the ideal of KODO Design.”
— Ikuo Maeda
the car
concept
After researching Mazda’s design goals as a company, I decided to center my design on the following mission:
“Mazda is on a mission to use cars as a medium to introduce traditional Japanese beauty to the world.”
So as I began sketching, I looked to traditional Japanese paintings, calligraphy, form, and motion. For my color palette, I lifted the reds, pinks, and yellows that often portrayed the subtle elegant motion of leaves and nature in these traditional paintings.
Having selected a color palette, I faced a problem: the color palette I chose evoked soft, flowing movement, but the CX-3 was supposed to “express dynamism…with a great feeling of energy.“ To express this strong, energetic movement, I layered close to 100 swoops and arrows on top of each other, all stemming from the front of the vehicle. I thought that this design made the car feel like it was pushing and warping through space, but with a beauty that didn’t detract from the energy.
To me, this design “introduce[d] traditional Japanese beauty” in a modern way, and it embodied KODO. It added to the concept of the CX-3, while also allowing the lines of car to come forward. Eventually, my design was selected for second place in the competition, and was displayed at the D.C. Auto Show.
design
