hey do you really think that volvo was designed by women?
… at risk of sounding a bit sexist… I honestly wonder if it is possible for a team of women to complete a car design to that level of finish/detail
i get the feeling its a bit of a swedish gimmick and everyone wants to believe its true
ok…go to tooling!
No. I am quite certain that you must have a penis to design cars.
Just a reality check for you: you don’t sound a little sexist, you sound completely sexist.
– Ian
I do believe that women designers produce DIFFERENT design than me designers, but not better or worse. As far as detail is concerned. I believe that women designers whould produce far better results than men. If one looks at the whole picture, one can see that both sexes should be involved with the design of products. Female conception is differebt than male. A female designer, I believe can see problem solving from completely different perspective. In other words, … volvo … wake up! That kind of mentality will get you nowhere.
Maybe they should have called it the “Vulva”
Mulva?
OH…
Dolores
Volvo YCC (Your Concept Car)
the design team, interviews: Your Concept Car - A Project with Women in the Driver's Seat | SwedeSpeed - Volvo Performance Forum
I think its a good design with a lot of nice features, I’m not sure any more women would like versus men. I’m not sure, as designers, that we can pretend to know consumers so well as to acheive that. I’m also not sure if putting together an all female team isn’t discrimination. If I where one of those designers I would want to be there because I was the most skilled and capable person available, and not based on anything else, maybe just me.
Other than flowers on the seats, what makes it a feminin vehicle? And hey, lots of dudes like flowers.
They do seem to have successfully targeted that ever elusive consumer… the Back To the Future movie fan! 
Some of the team look a little mannish anyway.
Designers black. Why not white suits like Karim?
Again, not meaning to be sexist, but the car should come supplied with some parking scuffs on the bumpers/sides to avoid the inevidable.
^^^ Is this guy for real??!
BTW, the car that saved Buick was done by Liz Wetzel.
http://www.autorevista.com/articles/02rendezvous.htm
I loved Tom Peters “Power of Woman” chapter in ReInvent.
He’s got 166 Powerpoint slides for sale for $5 re; Womans Issues.
http://www.tompeters.com/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TPW&Product_Code=WOMENPPT&Category_Code=S
If you’re a designer of either sex and you aren’t designing products for women FIRST, then you’re a fool. Read Up!!!
agreed: I did footwear for women for quite awhile, there are a lot of specific issues: and I think as a red-blooded, video game playing, muscle car loving male I had to do my homework twice as hard. I was able to remove my personal tastes from the equation to develop high end, limited edition boutique shoes for young, proffessional urbanite women with lots of disposable income… but I think that saying this is a product by women for women comes off clumsy, corporate and heavy handed. Kind of like FUBU (For Us By Us) clothing co.
Also, I would be interested to know what the response was to this vehicle. Did the team deliver against the expectation of developing a vehicle that women will love. Women make more than half of automotive purchases, so it is smart to gear product to their tastes, throwing a few flowers on a seat seems like a bit of an insult though. I’m guessing there is a lot more to this design than that, but it does not make itself self evident, which is part of the design challenge.
How come it took 9 women to design a car? Were they all taking time off for personal reasons during the project? I bet their boss was a man or the car would never have been built.
women designing cars is definitely a turn on. While reading the swedespeed article ABBA started playing in my head… go figure! I hope it does well on the market.
The flowers did insult me , that and the shag floormats. Flower prints bore me. Its not just me but a lot of friends of mine (non designers) don’t enjoy the flower coated products that get shoved up our consumer asses (no i don’t mean feminine products, geez). But I can enjoy the overall design. the only thing feminine about this car is that its got “Drive safely” associated with its maker. That and of course the ability to carry loads without denting or scratching the interior (seats fold up). I would hope a man would want these qualities too. Definitly a gay man. The gull wings look cool but i think it would hinder getting in and out of the car if you were over 5 feet tall, which most women are. So yea overall design is good looking (ugh dash is gross) but not necessarily feminine- more for petite hermaphrodite shoppaholics.
If you look at some of the detail shots around on the net, you can see that they have put the windsreen washer filler cap right next to the petrol cap on the side of the car.
If we’re targeting women who cant even reverse park, then I’m thinking there’ll be a few petrol coated windscreens coming up.
It’s a fact - at least in the UK. Women have more accidents than men. http://www.utvlive.com/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=54697&pt=n
The best designed vehicle for women is a bus. Driven by a man.
@YO
just like homer’s ‘camionero’Otherwise totaly agree with your comments. I like flowers/neo-baroque, it’s nice to see they’re back ‘in’.
yes artur83, … I agree with your comments.
I would hope a man would want these qualities too. Definitly a gay man.
Stereotypes and its otherside.
The things that I keep seeing are
Woman=must be feminine / Man=must be masculine
Woman with no make ups=ugly / Fat= ugly / Man with artsy taste=possibly -gay / Man with artsy taste and money=sensitive and educated
I believe this is the result of how deep and saturated our culture is built upon heterosexuality.
-Father goes out work, mother cooks at home, children obey parents and stay cool at home doing homeworks.
-Next, Father goes out work, mother goes out work and children still so innocent and stay home.
-Next, Father was gay, mother dates another man at work and children were always having fun outside.=bad bad bad…
-Gay=Woman=must like flowers and cozy carpets ??
-Gay=he was never feminine=can always hide himself=pretend not like flowers and carpets eventhough he’s been always passion about arts and beauty=decided to study something masculine and sensitive, like ID?
sliding doors would have been perfect.
so what do female IDers think about it? just to know a womans POV.
Can we at list have one 20’s female, 30’s feminine gay male, 1 asian female and 1 black female as your team member. Let’s be more creative, honestly.
Everybody is different and brings different skills and background to the table, man-man, woman to woman, man-woman, tall-short, everything in your life gives everyone unique and different perspectives that can be relevant. I think doing purposeful groupings like that only help propel stereotypes.
As designers, if you’re truly doing your research and designing based on your consumers needs, than you can design the appropriate product for anyone. Some people might have a knowledge base headstart if they’re the target group, but that doesn’t mean they’re the only ones that can do it correctly.
