The golden age of the automobile remains a memory , still close, for motor enthusiasts. Days when owning your dream car was more important than keeping the latest model of the fashionable smartphone in your pocket. Times change and societies evolve by leaps and bounds. Of course, some aspects remain unchanged. The purchase of a vehicle continues to generate excitement, a tingling in the stomach and the pleasure that puffs the chest with pride. We continue to acquire machines that we like, with which we feel identified and that, despite being soulless objects (for Europeans) have the ability to show our own. The design remains the definitive argument when choosing between one model or another, rather than an achievable economic difference. Kia knows this and, for that reason, pays special attention to the aesthetic evolution of its vehicles from its design center in South Korea, but is it true that Europeans have different tastes from Orientals? This and other curiosities have been answered by Karim Habib, senior vice president and director of the Kia Design Center .
Karim Habib studied design in the United States but was trained in Europe, a continent from which he learned its history and heritage. This Lebanese man traveled the world, from Canada to Germany through California, expanding his background on the mechanics and aesthetic cultures of each place. In 2019 he headed the Kia design department, after passing through Daimler, BMW and Infiniti , to take charge of the Global Design Center in Namyang (Korea) . From there he leads the latest projects of the firm, which has firmly committed to giving its vehicles an emotional and passionate character. A design language that has been recognized with more than 20 iF Design Awards and 25 Red Dot Awards . The Kia XCeed has been the last consecutive award-winning model, in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
In these talks with Habib we will discover the differences, if they exist, between European and Eastern design but we will also discover what they are inspired by to create the fronts of their vehicles. Do cars have faces? Grills and bumpers often remind us of animals or human faces with specific gestures, but why do mechanical objects remind us of living beings? We reveal it to you in this interview.
