The Mercedes-Benz design philosophy

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• Major tasks: product fascination and brand identity through design
• Well-proven strategy: long-term effect rather than short-term trends
• Living tradition: “gene pool” of typical styling features
• Driving pleasure: the car as a living space

It was March 1993 and the attention was once again on Mercedes-Benz at the Geneva Motor Show. This time it was not the latest technical innovations that were the focus of the company’s presentation; it was a quite different topic: design. The Stuttgart-based manufacturer presented a coupé study which significantly differed from previous models bearing the Mercedes star in terms of its overall design. Instead of conventional, rectangular headlamps and the prominent, chrome-plated radiator grille, the front end of this Coupé was embellished with four oval headlamps, curved wings and a radiator grille harmoniously integrated in the bonnet.

Knowledgeable observers immediately knew that this was a sign of a new beginning. Mercedes-Benz was going on the offensive – and not just in design terms, but also where its branding policy was concerned.

Just two years later, the twin-headlamp front end was a reality. The E-Class was launched with this new look in mid-1995. The message was clear: the entire appearance of the Mercedes model range was to become as attractive and dynamic as this saloon. The slogan used at the time – “See Mercedes with new eyes” – was to be taken literally in two respects: Mercedes-Benz was developing from a specialist manufacturer of luxury-class cars to an exclusive, full-line supplier of high-quality, premium cars for many different market segments.

This dynamic development had a name: strategic product initiative. Within just a few years, the five model series (C, E, G, S and SL-Class), on which the product portfolio had been based at the beginning of the 1990s, had grown to 15, with well over 110 model variants.

In this way, recent Mercedes history shows the importance of design for the brand image and market success – a fact that not only applies to Mercedes-Benz, of course. Since today’s cars are becoming increasingly similar in their technical aspects, the most important distinguishing features are now body contours, colour schemes and interior appointments.

But design has an even greater importance for Mercedes-Benz: it is literally a trademark. It is design that characterises the image of the brand with the star, embodying typical Mercedes attributes such as effortless power, dynamism, elegance and innovation – as well as safety, solidity and quality.

In this context design has important tasks to fulfil in two respects – and Mercedes design has been doing this very successfully for many years: the design lines of the cars not only create enthusiasm for the products, but also reflect the philosophy and standing of Mercedes-Benz. In other words, design represents brand values – and creates brand values.

Design should also awaken passions, however – passion for the motor vehicle and the desire to own a particular model. “Love at first sight” has long been a slogan rooted in reality for the car business. Design must not only stimulate this desire, but also keep it alive over a long period of time. The psychological process extends from recognition to familiarity and finally brand awareness. The point is therefore not just to create appealing and functional products, but also to generate a brand identity.

Identity and continuity

The subject of brand identity has always been a core task which is pursued with uncompromising rigour. What is a typical Mercedes-Benz? What lies at the core of the brand bearing the famous star? These questions are easily answered, as everybody nowadays knows what a Mercedes looks like. Developing and maintaining such a successful brand image requires long-term strategies and conceptual continuity, however.

New Mercedes models should form a bridge to the future with their design. At the same time their lines must not depart from their origins. This ensures that every new Mercedes-Benz receives an unmistakable identity and reveals its long heritage even at first glance. However, this also means that fashion trends are out of the question for Mercedes designers, as they lack what distinguishes every Mercedes-Benz: timelessness.

Given a product lifecycle of around 20 years, which is certainly realistic for vehicles bearing the star, there is no room for short-term fashion features. The high market value which Mercedes passenger cars command even after many years is not least based on the fact that an old Mercedes-Benz does not look old. Even when succeeding models celebrate their debut in a model series, their predecessors are not placed in the shadow but remain highly desirable. Their design is effective in the long term.

A Mercedes-Benz will always be recognisable as a Mercedes-Benz. Mercedes designers devote the utmost care to ensuring that specific styling features are developed further while essentially being retained. The designers refer to this as the “gene pool” of the brand and they take their inspiration from this to maintain the brand’s style.

One good example is the typical Mercedes radiator grille – a characteristic feature of vehicles bearing the Mercedes star for almost 105 years, making them unmistakable. The design of the radiator grille has constantly evolved during these years. Both in its basic proportions and styling details, the designers have made continuous efforts to reinterpret this distinguishing feature in order to create a fresh, up-to-date appearance.

The same principle applies to its opposite number in the more sporty models, the so-called SL radiator. This was adopted directly from motor racing during the 1950s and has been a symbol of Mercedes sports cars ever since. In the same way as the saloon radiator, this feature is constantly reinterpreted in design terms. Each of the five SL generations presented by Mercedes-Benz since the legendary “Gullwing” has shown the relative emphasis placed on tradition and progress: although each model has features in common with its predecessors, it also clearly demonstrates further design development and emphatically ushers in a new design era.

This detailed attention keeps the design idiom and brand image alive, innovative and dynamic and, at the same time, unmistakable. Since the mid-90s Mercedes-Benz has successfully used this recipe to establish itself in new market segments, gain the enthusiasm of new customers for the brand and also achieve another important aim: setting trends.

The twin-headlamp front end is a good example in this respect. It caused other manufacturers to end the era of rectangular headlamps and was imitated worldwide. This underlines the stylistic quality of the concept, which Mercedes-Benz has not only applied in the E-Class but also reinterpreted for individual effect in other model series – the latest example being the new-generation E-Class. In this way Mercedes designers continuously demonstrate continuity and creativity where trends in form are concerned. For making perceptible changes to well-proven products without altering their essential nature is another art mastered by Mercedes design.

However, if interpretation is kept excessively strict, the aim of formal continuity carries the risk of entering a stylistic dead-end where there is no more scope for individuality. While different models have the same brand-typical identifying features, their true identity and real character are not revealed.

There is no such design uniformity at Mercedes-Benz. On the contrary, every model – whether a luxury saloon, coupé, roadster or compact car – presents itself as a distinctive “personality”. The common, familiar basic patterns of the design idiom are combined with new stylistic details, which initially cause surprise, but which continuously revise perceptions of the Stuttgart brand in combination with familiar features.

Trends and reality

Recognising trends and influencing trends are the major tasks of car designers. They live in the present, but their area of operation is the future. This requires a highly sensitive awareness of changes in customers’ living habits, new attitudes in daily life and form or colour-related trends from other aspects of life – for example, the furniture or electronic sectors. But also an awareness of other cultures. This is why Mercedes designers work not only in Germany, but also in Italy, Japan and USA. The company has established Advanced Design Studios in all these locations to pick up international signals on a local basis then analyse and translate them into creative reality. The art lies in intuitively recognising nuances in taste and developing a feeling for important and sustained tendencies in the arts, culture and society.

Merely looking into the future and recognising new trends is not enough for designers, however. The multiplicity of diffuse ideas for the future also poses the question of which tendencies a brand like Mercedes-Benz chooses to use as an impulse. It has always been a decisive principle for us not to be fashionable, but modern.

It is therefore important to distinguish short-lived trends from long-term developments, thereby identifying the real expectations of customers in the future. Mercedes designers are less inclined towards the analysis of trends than towards well-founded forecasts and specific answers to questions such as how people will live in the future, how consumer behaviour will develop and, most importantly, how the enthusiasm of future customers can be awakened. The challenge lies in thinking about possible future developments and taking these ideas further – beyond the reality dictated by trends and fashions.

Passion and good sense

This aspect is perhaps the most important and interesting area for the work of automobile designers. Its subject matter is people or, more precisely, customers and their personalities. Nowadays driving a car does not just mean getting safely and comfortably from A to B. More than ever before, the objective is to make the journey an experience. An experience to be enjoyed because the customer feels at home in his car and it suits his personal lifestyle – and also because the car effectively expresses this lifestyle to others.

In addition to market and social research studies, Mercedes designers obtain valuable ideas for new, future-oriented vehicle and design concepts from discussions with male and female car drivers all over the world. One example is the CLS-Class, which specifically and elegantly combines two different characters: the stylistic appeal and strong emotional charisma of a coupé harmonising with the comfort and practicality of a saloon. Accordingly this four-door coupé meets the wishes of today’s people who seek and appreciate something special and who are also looking for pronounced individuality, stylish elegance and a high experience value in a car. It is no accident that we refer to the CLS-Class as a “Coupé for the discerning”.

The desire for relaxation, security, wellness, pleasure and aesthetic surroundings is part of a very specific lifestyle. More and more people want to live differently, more consciously and intensively. They want to feel at ease and take pleasure in beautiful things – also in their cars. More than ever before, sensual perception of a product is of outstanding importance. This is demonstrated by the worldwide market success of the CLS-Class and other Mercedes passenger cars, which satisfy these customer expectations.

Experience and pleasure

Keeping the fascination with beauty alive over many years is also one of the most important tasks for interior designers and is becoming a major aspect of design work. The interior of a car is regarded as a living space in which the customer spends a great deal of time, therefore a homely touch is also increasingly important in automobile design.

There is no doubt that the customer has become more demanding and sensitive to this aspect in recent years. He not only wants a wide range of appointments from which he can freely select what best suits his taste and personality, but also attaches particular importance to high-quality materials and a high standard of finish. It is in this way that values such as aesthetic appeal, comfort and quality are communicated and experienced via the overall visual impression.

The aim of interior design at Mercedes-Benz can be summarised in just a few words: the customer should enter the car, close the doors and immediately feel at home. Surrounded by beautiful shapes, admiring high-quality, hand-finished exotic wood trim, feeling the soft leather seat upholstery and enjoying a warm, pleasant interior colour scheme. This is the world of Mercedes-Benz.

Form and function

For all the attention to detail, automotive designers are not packaging specialists. It is by no means their task merely to package new technologies or vehicle concepts in an attractive way – they also have a major effect on the initiation of new, future-oriented ideas with a view to series-production maturity. The four-door CLS-Class Coupé mentioned above is just one example of this, as the entire Mercedes-Benz product initiative demonstrates how closely the Stuttgart brand’s product strategy, design and technology can work together.

Mercedes designers are involved in the conceptual phase and technical development process for new models right from the start. This naturally means that design work is also teamwork; the design studio of a large-scale car manufacturer is not a dream factory. Working as a team, designers and engineers must be willing to compromise if they are to find viable solutions which meet all the different requirements. This means that vehicle designers are confronted with much more difficult challenges than their colleagues in other industrial sectors. This is because a car is one of the few industrial products which are not only expected to have a stylish exterior, but also a perfectly designed interior. Moreover, a car is a product put together from various individual disciplines. Some of these features are as complex as an entire product in other industrial sectors.

Form and function, technology and art: what at first sounds contradictory must be combined to form a harmonious overall concept in a modern automobile. This goal is achieved if the design work and the skill of the engineers complement each other at a high level. Fitness for purpose and good design are therefore not natural enemies.

For Mercedes-Benz, new technical developments have always been part of the brand’s history. Mercedes engineers have written automotive history with numerous trailblazing innovations: the crumple zone, ABS, the airbag, the belt tensioners, the Electronic Stability Program, PRE-SAFE® and other milestones in car engineering first entered series production at Mercedes-Benz. In other words, technological leadership is part of our brand philosophy; the task of design is to make this claim tangible and set the appropriate trends.

Visions and emotions

Sometimes show cars, concept or research vehicles are used for this purpose. These are designed and developed to provide a launch-pad for new ideas, test new vehicle concepts or technologies, intensify the dialogue with customers and analyse the reactions of the public to such vehicle ideas. Mercedes-Benz also implements such car studies to take a stylistic look into the future and offer designers an opportunity to develop and realise new means of formal expression. A look at the recent history of the Mercedes-Benz brand shows that these visions can quickly develop into specific series-production projects. For example, the CLS-Class, R-Class and the SLR McLaren super sports car were preceded by a number of highly acclaimed concept cars, the design of which set new trends and paved the way for new model series in the minds of the public.

The designers take an even deeper look into the future with research cars of the F-series (“F” being the first letter of the German word for “research”). These vehicles are used to present new technologies, allowing an insight into the automotive world of tomorrow. These innovations must be given both a futuristic and appealing form. This is more than just an interesting task for the design team where research vehicles are concerned – it is an exciting challenge. The aim is to create a harmonious, three-part composition consisting of expressive shapes, new vehicle concepts and unique technology. Accordingly these projects require even more than the usual imagination and creativity to harmonise the design and technology.

Whether it is a research vehicle or in regular production, a vehicle is always perceived via the senses. Nobody is immune from its emotional effects. Desire is awakened merely by its appearance, i.e. by its design, long before one knows anything about the technical data or innovations.

The exciting task of the designers has always been to awaken these emotions and keep them alive. The aim of their work is to develop automobiles within the force field of technology and design which excel in terms of both technical and emotional intelligence.

Designers have done their work successfully when customers not only buy vehicles for rational reasons, but for reasons both of the heart and good sense.

The design process

Working in two worlds

More than 350 employees from 20 nations are responsible for lending shape to Mercedes passenger cars. The headquarters of the Design department are in Sindelfingen, where a modern design building featuring a segmented layout reminiscent of a studio structure was constructed on the site of the Mercedes-Benz Technology Center in 1998. Mercedes-Benz has also established design studios in Como (Italy), Tokyo (Japan) and Los Angeles (USA). Three continents and three cultures – many years ahead, this ensures the stylistic variety necessary to recognise where automotive design trends are going and how customer expectations will develop.

Design work is teamwork. Mercedes designers work in teams with their colleagues in the Development and Production departments, planning the processes necessary to make new stylistic ideas technically realisable. The design process is a fixed part 0of the Mercedes Development System (MDS), which divides the concept, design and production of new models into individual phases. The interfaces between these phases are the “quality gates” – fixed times during the project when development progress and the level of maturity are examined. The quality gate only opens if a predefined level of performance has been achieved, allowing the next project phase to begin.

The design process begins with the “emotional phase”. This is an important phase during which the design potentials of a new vehicle project are explored to direct the different design ideas into the right channels. It is also necessary, for designing top-class automobiles undoubtedly requires not just a technical understanding, but also emotional input: a passion for cars, a fascination with technology and enthusiasm for experience-oriented driving.

Conceptual phase: emotions on paper and the computer screen

While sketchpads and colour pencils remain a popular working aid during the emotional phase of the design process, in order to put visions on paper and sketch new shapes, the designers increasingly often resort to an electronic pen and a computer drawing board. Computers have revolutionised the scope of automotive design. Modern technology multiplies the creative possibilities of designers, allowing them to create many variants of a new car, change them around with little effort and rapidly compare the results with the requirements laid down in the conceptual book of specifications. Without ever building a model, bending a piece of steel or moulding a dashboard panel.

The first two-dimensional computer drafts demonstrate whether the stylistic ideas were reconcilable with the requirements of the predetermined dimensional concept. This basic data was already stored in the computer’s electronic memory as a “proportional model” and at every stage of the process they provided the designers with a reliable reference to reconcile their designs with reality. Are the windscreen and A-pillars inclined at the right angles? Is the bonnet high enough to accommodate all the engine variants? The computer can answer these and other questions at the click of a mouse button.

Detailed improvements: into the virtual world

With a high degree of precision and much more rapidly than before, this produced variants which to a large extent complied with the requirements of the design and dimensional concepts. In order to fine-tune the design and technology, the specialists in Sindelfingen then took to the so-called Powerwall – a seven-metre-wide projection wall onto which high-performance computers project the designs in such a way that the designers can view and assess them from every conceivable angle. In this way it was also possible to combine the dimensional concept with the design variants by purely digital means, thereby creating the conditions for a technically and stylistically perfect overall result at an early stage.

Model phase: the third dimension

Taking decisions in the virtual world alone is not enough, however. In contrast to any digital representation, it is only reality that really produces a truly emotional design experience. Accordingly the model-makers went into action when the number of exterior designs had been reduced to a shortlist, transferring the computer images to the real, three-dimensional world in the form of 1:4-scale models. Now it is possible to revise wing contours, headlamp transitions and other details as a final fine-tuning process.

Using these models, the Board of Management and head of Design select the designs to be produced as life-size 1:1-scale models – of which the best will ultimately enter series production.