Author | Yan Guangming, Editor | He Zi
"When will Geely surpass luxury car brands?"
Four years ago, Yang Xueliang asked me, feeling a little impatient. At that time, I didn't answer directly, but joked, "With the taste of the West Lake, Geely will become interesting." In my opinion, this is Geely's advantage and irreplaceable resource, just as foreigners envy Shanghai's superiority.
Recently, at the launch ceremony of Geely's new energy strategy and Galaxy Light, the world premiere of Galaxy L7, an eye-catching concept-"ripple aesthetics" made my eyes shine. The reason is that the endorsement of "three pools printing the moon" naturally produces a wonderful and wonderful echo of "the Milky Way is surrounded in the sky and the West Lake is rippling on the ground". Yang Xueliang came to ask me, what do you think? We didn't compliment, but said that Geely can play "Fun Soul" now.
I remember that after Geely acquired Volvo, the biggest change was Geely's "face change". First, it was tried on the "Emgrand" car, and then it was first rolled out in its series of models, thus forming the symbol of the front face of Geely's "family"-heaven and earth.
This design originated from Li Shufu's "world view" and endowed the imagination with the concept of the reincarnation of heaven and earth, which undoubtedly gave Peter? Hobury's inspiring inspiration is expounded and interpreted with his passion of original design. When landing became the new face of Geely, some people said that the design elements came from Volvo. In an interview, the world-class car designer made it clear that this is the "heaven and earth culture" that originated in China.
I have interviewed this designer many times. He never sticks to the shackles of design ideas, but emphasizes the importance of culture in design. His writing style is good, he pays attention to the pattern, he is good at professionalism, and he is old and innovative, which often becomes the highlight of attention. For example, Volvo's "from old-fashioned to fashionable" transformation and Lectra's "urban opposition aesthetics" can be said that good designers are thoughtful innovators. As a result, Geely Design began to "change its face" under his auspices.
Although Hobury used to be the chief designer of Volvo and was familiar with western automobile design routines, after joining Geely, he examined the "fun" of automobiles from a global perspective and presented the era of Geely automobile design with China's humanistic concept. When he constructed Geely's "recognition", he did not blindly make up for western fashion or show off the Nordic avant-garde, but tried to shape a unique classic style.
Undeniably, any design is ultimately inseparable from culture. Lifestyle design is only a part of culture, especially influenced by regions and habits. Different attributes will produce different styles and outputs of different cultures. The so-called good design is not entirely cool design technology, but the embodiment of internal cultural strength, which comes from the conquest of "regional attributes." Throughout the world, famous cars are like this, and car races are all cultural secret wrestling. This move is self-evident, as we all know. In this regard, as early as the 1990s, Detroit observers predicted in the book "2 1 Century Car Duel" that the struggle behind cars was actually a cultural war.
The ancients had "enough food and clothing to know etiquette". The same is true for automobiles, especially when independent brands develop to an advanced stage. When building a car is no longer a problem, technology can be used for reference, resource integration is no longer mysterious, and the homogenization of the physical characteristics of the car is inevitable. The demand of consumers is no longer as simple as meeting the function and cost performance, but needs "the interesting soul of the car", not just a skin. The awakening of Geely is a conscious choice forced by commercial competition. The transformation from the inside out, and then touch the soul from the outside to the inside, that is, from fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles, from manufacturing to technological changes, from the introduction of hard technology to the construction of soft technology and so on. And found the fulcrum of culture in the cycle-self-confidence.
Five years ago, Geely's own brand was upgraded. I asked the relevant personnel why they didn't go to Shanghai (marketing). Their answer is that they are not ready. The implication is that there must be cultural identity. Now there are many Geely cars in Shanghai, not only green ones, but also blue ones. People begin to take "new trend" instead of "Geely" as their pride, and the driving force of change is culture at work. There are many such stories. The key is that the product has spillover value and the brand has cultural endorsement. Not only the strength improvement after the acquisition of Volvo, but also the innovation of technology digestion ability and the mastery of resource integration beyond the imagination of the outside world.
In this context, Geely realized that the construction of soft power is the key to the sustainable development of the brand. Not only actively participated in social and cultural activities and social welfare projects, but also participated in the sponsorship of the upcoming Asian Games in Hangzhou with the painstaking efforts of the Group, and put out a business card of Hangzhou, doing its part and showing great pride. For Geely, this is a historic turning point from technical Geely to cultural Geely. Before this, Geely never realized, at least didn't pay attention to Hangzhou as a treasure trove of geomantic omen (cultural resources). In the past, the idea of holding business activities and foreign exchanges in other places was to "jump out of the region, face the whole country and go global". This somewhat reflects that Geely, who was once not confident, has an inferiority complex with products that are not too hard, and has not stepped out of Taizhou's narrow psychological limitations.
Since the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, West Lake has become Geely's best endorsement. In this regard, I have said many times that when Geely Automobile absorbs the West Lake culture, it will move towards real cultural self-confidence, and it will be able to occupy a place in the world automobile design stage and have discourse resources. It's like Toyota can't live without "Mom", Volkswagen can't live without "Wolfsburg" and GM can't live without "Detroit". This is the aura of culture. If compared from the perspective of history, culture and civilization, who can compare with Hangzhou? Kyle. Polo once wrote in his travel notes that "Hangzhou is the most beautiful and luxurious city in the world". Even designers from the capital of automobile design (Turin, Italy) will be fascinated when they come to Hangzhou (to provide space for design imagination), thinking that it is a "paradise for automobile design". Design is everywhere, scenery is everywhere, humanity is everywhere, and elegance is everywhere.
Galaxy Light is the prototype of Galaxy L7. Many West Lake elements are adopted in the design presentation, and they have evolved and reappeared through scientific and technological means. Just as the exquisite new design language-"Ripple Aesthetics" returns to "the beauty of the canal", it originates from the accumulation of eternal aesthetics, integrates the elegance of Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and embodies the splendor of modern fashion pioneers, among which there is no lack of wisdom and poetry left by "Two Embankments (Bai Causeway and Su Causeway)". The West Lake is not a gift from God, but a design masterpiece inspired by culture (supported by a lot of poems). So the beauty of the West Lake is not ordinary. No matter from what angle, in what mood, "light makeup is always appropriate." Therefore, some people compare the West Lake to a lady's house. Even if some things are not satisfactory, they just frown. This is the charm, unforgettable. Bai Juyi sincerely sighed, "I remember Jiangnan, and I remember Hangzhou best", looking forward to revisiting the old place and meeting when I was drunk.
If these poems, allusions and humanistic feelings are integrated into the design (Bai Juyi and Su Shi are not only masters of poetry and painting, but also good officials who are pragmatic and beneficial to the people), I believe that such an image is far better than western myths and has practical significance, so how can its vitality not attract attention? It is not difficult to see that this cultural tension has been realized in the design of Galaxy Light. It is obviously not harsh to propose that a good design should have "scientific pleasure", that is, the guarantee of both aesthetics and experience, wisdom and safety.
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Abandoning the superficial splendor and pursuing the pleasure of the soul should be the confidence and direction of the current independent design of automobiles. This requires the balance of the trinity of face value, body and soul, and the determination of culture, otherwise it will be biased and difficult to obtain aesthetic pleasure. I believe that if the car design has the innovative charm of "Ten Scenes of West Lake", it will not only have the artistic conception of Zhang Dai looking at the snow, but also have the true meaning of "Suzhou and Hangzhou under the sun" in Fan Chengda, and it is no longer an extravagant hope to twist the beauty accompanied by ancient and modern elegance.
The light of the Milky Way, the origin of the interesting soul of the car, is also the beginning of Geely's fun.
(This article was originally written by "He Yan Reading Car" and may not be reproduced without authorization. )
This article comes from the author Yan He of Yi Che Hao, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author for any form of reprint. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.