Decoding Tata Tiago’s Influence design philosophy
For the very first time ever, the doors of the Tata Motors Design Studio in Pune were thrown open to journalists to understand how their fresh design philosophy – Influence – was going to form the design of their cars, kicking off with the Tiago.
Head of Design at Tata Motors Pratap Bose explained that with the Tiago, Tata Motors desired to reach out to a broader target audience than its current audience base. They specifically dreamed to concentrate on making more women and youthful people part of the brand. This switch in their target audience led them to embark on a fresh design philosophy which they named Influence. It concentrates on areas that will leave an instant influence on very first impression, and a lasting influence over time on potential buyers’ minds.
The Influence design philosophy applies to both the car exterior and interior with Tata Using Terms like ‘Titillating’, Expressive’ and ‘Extreme’ to refer to the exterior and ‘Inviting’, Intelligent’ and ‘Intouch’ for the interiors, under the fresh philosophy.
‘Arousing’ refers to architecture and utilising correct cabin to figure ratio, spandex hood to cabin ratio, location of wheels. The fresh design language uses ‘Expressive’ design language for the surface of the cars. An example of this is the front of the car which was defined as a ‘cheeky’ smirk by Pratap Bose. The ‘Extreme’ elements of the Tiago’s design are the smoked headlamps, acute styling of the tail lamps and the Humanity line at the front which gives the front of the car its distinguished look. The interiors of the Tiago are designed in such a way to make the cabin look ‘Inviting’ and Intelligent’. Driver-focused cabin layout, use of high quality texture, fabrics and materials and clever storage spaces ensure that the cabin of the car is has an inviting feel and intelligent design. ‘Intouch’ refers to remaining connected with the world inwards and outside the car with the HARMAN designed ConnectNext infotainment system.
The design of a car goes through a few stages where it is perfected for the production variant of the car. Designers embark by sketching out a basic outline based on the design brief of the car. A series of sketches see the design of the car becoming tighter and closer to how the finished product will look. Clay-modelling is also used to create a 3D version of the design and the finer design aspects of the car are worked upon on the clay model. The model that Tata displayed us was a 1:Four scale, but the company uses utter scale designs during the development stages.
These clay moedlling implements are unique to the auto industry.
Different sections of the design studio work in conjunction with each other to finalise the design elements of the production model like the colour of different parts, thickness of elements and feel of touch.
Over the coming years, the Influence design philosophy will be seen on all Tata cars as the Indian carmaker is keen to bolster the design of its cars, an area where it has been found lacking in its previous models.