Ford to unify its designs

Ford Motor Company’s vice-president of design J Mays has announced that the carmaker is planning to bring the design thinking used by its European and North American design teams into line for the first time.

According to Mays, the ‘design language’ used to inspire the look and feel of Ford’s vehicle designs will be ‘unified’ transatlantically. Until now its design team in the States, run by Peter Horbury, and its team in Europe, run by Martin Smith, have operated independently.

The initiative follows a move by incoming Ford chief executive Alan Mullaly to introduce a ‘one Ford’ drive. The first iterations of the global design initiative will be applied to its next generation of Ford-branded vehicles.