Chery, the leading independent Chinese vehicle manufacturer, took an important step forward with the unveiling of its new design language at the Beijing International Automotive Exhibition recently.
Chery’s senior executives made a special presentation to the media on the eve of the opening of the show to illustrate how Chery is building its own, unique brand identity with a combination of design concepts, product planning and marketing initiatives.
The event, was entitled the Chery Design Show and the theme was “Creating the Soul of the Chinese Automobile”. The highlight was the unveiling of two, dramatically-styled examples of the new design language, which were named only as Concept α (alpha) and Concept β (beta). The general manager of the Chery Sales Company, Huang Huaqiong, pointed out that Chery Design goes further than just being Chery’s new family design language as it is based on sprit rather than form with the aim of giving each future Chery vehicle a soul.
Chery recently strengthened its design capability by acquiring some leading foreign designers to work with the local styling and design team in China. The newcomers include the director of design at Chery Automobile, James Hope, who was previously a designer at General Motors, and Hakan Saracoglu, a former designer at Porsche.
Hope explained to the gathering of media representatives and industry commentators in Beijing that Chery Design consists of four major components – proportion, branding, design language and quality, each of which is skilfully integrated with Chinese elements. For instance, Concept α has a frontal appearance blended with elements of a covered bridge from ancient Chinese architecture. According to Hope the grille contains the yin and yang elements of Chinese traditional culture, while the flowing outline embodies the element of water which is one of the five elements in traditional Chinese culture.
The former GM designer added that Chery Design also strives to integrate practicality, inclusiveness, virtue and innovation, all of which have spiritual connotations in terms of Chinese mainstream culture. Chery’s deputy general manager, Chen Anning, went on to say: “There are many brands in China which are similar to Chery so we have to set ourselves apart. For example, we accept neither blind imitation nor the act of plagiarism in terms of design and R&D.
“We seek inspiration based on the entrenched aesthetic and spiritual needs of the Chinese culture, which we see as real design. Design is not only a fashion but a sprit from the bottom of the heart. It is a must that every Chinese enterprise should have an exclusive design base if it wants to progress in the future. We believe we have laid this foundation for Chery with our new design language as exemplified by the Concept α and β show cars in Beijing.”