The
Art & Design of
Automobiles
Every car is a giant sculpture that has to keep people safe, slip through the air, fit real bodies and sell. You’ll learn the design process, meet iconic designs, explore colour, logos and interiors, and design a vehicle of your own.
- 00First Principlesp.2
- 01The design processp.4
- 02Iconic designsp.5
- 03Colour, logos & badgesp.6
- 04Interiors & ergonomicsp.7
- 05Concepts & your designp.8
- 06Sketch-to-clay conceptp.10
- ✦Self-check · Make it · 5 Questions · Side Questp.9
You'll need: pencils and a fine black pen, grid paper, coloured pencils or markers, a tape measure, modelling clay or air-dry clay, and a cardboard box.
Principles
A first principle is a basic truth you can build on. Car design rests on a few ideas: proportion (wheels, body and glass in balance), function (safety, aerodynamics, space), the human body (seats, reach, sight lines) and identity (a shape, colour or badge you recognize from across a parking lot).
What do I already know?
What is necessary?
Everything in this module is built from four bricks. Rate yourself on each one, then check the example to see if your rating holds up.
What is the objective?
By the end, you’ll be able to describe how cars are designed, analyze iconic designs, colours and badges, judge an interior, and design and present a vehicle of your own.
- 01Describe the steps from sketch to production.
- 02Analyze what makes a design iconic.
- 03Explain colour trends and logo design.
- 04Judge an interior for ergonomics and access.
- 05Explain what concept cars are for.
- 06Design and present your own vehicle.
The list on the left is ours. Now make it yours. What do you want out of this?
How much do you know about the art & design of automobiles right now? Shade the boxes in pencil. You'll come back at the end (p.9) and shade it again in pen.
Why start this way? When you know what you already have (1), what you need (2) and where you're going (3), you learn faster and you notice the gaps. Every module on the Automobiles Path starts with these same three questions.
The car design process
Before a car is built, it is drawn, sculpted and rebuilt hundreds of times.
The design process
Hands and eyes
GM’s design chief Harley Earl, who led its Art and Colour Section from 1927, helped make full-size clay models standard. Computers are fast, but light reflecting off a real curved surface shows problems a screen can hide, so designers still sculpt, scrape and smooth clay by hand.
Many designers start with a strong side-view silhouette: if you can recognize a car from its shadow, the design is working.
Not just Detroit
Many Canadians study industrial and transportation design (for example at Emily Carr University in Vancouver or Humber Polytechnic in Toronto) and work worldwide. Ontario also has engineering and design centres for parts makers and EV and battery projects, and Alberta designers create trailers, buses, farm and oil-field vehicles.
Thumbnails
Draw 12 tiny side-view sketches of the same car idea in 10 minutes. Circle your best two. Why are they better?Why might designers make a full-size clay model when they already have a 3D computer model?
Iconic designs
Some cars look so right that people still recognize them decades later.
Shapes everyone knows
| Car | Why it’s iconic |
|---|---|
| Citroën DS (1955) | spaceship-smooth body by Flaminio Bertoni; self-levelling suspension |
| Mini (1959) | Alec Issigonis turned the engine sideways so most of a tiny car was cabin |
| Jaguar E-Type (1961) | long hood and curves; often called one of the most beautiful cars ever |
| Ford Mustang (1964) | long hood, short rear deck: the “pony car” recipe |
| Bricklin SV-1 (1974) | a Canadian-built safety car with gull-wing doors, made in New Brunswick |
A design with a hard history
Ferdinand Porsche designed the round “people’s car” in the 1930s for Nazi Germany. During the Second World War, the factory built military vehicles using about 20,000 forced labourers, including concentration camp prisoners. After the war, the Beetle became a symbol of cheap, friendly cars, and was loved by millions worldwide.
Volkswagen now runs a Place of Remembrance of Forced Labour at its Wolfsburg factory.
Form and function
- A clear silhouette you can draw in one line.
- An idea that solves a real problem (the Mini’s space, the DS’s ride).
- Honest details: lights, grilles and windows that look like what they do.
- Being a little bit brave for its time.
One-line car
Draw one iconic car from memory using a single continuous line. Show it to a friend. Can they name it?Why do retro designs (a new Mini or Mustang) borrow from old ones?
Colour, logos & badges
Colour and badges are how a car says hello from across the lot.
What we drive
- In Axalta’s 2024 report, white was North America’s most popular car colour (33%), with black, grey and silver close behind.
- 1950s: two-tone pastels. 1970s: browns, golds and avocado greens. 2000s: silver.
- Bright colours (yellow, orange, lime) are rarer but can stand out at resale.
- In snowy places, a white car can be harder to see in a whiteout.
Small art, big job
| Badge | Story |
|---|---|
| Mercedes-Benz three-pointed star | Daimler’s engines for land, sea and air |
| Subaru’s six stars | the Pleiades star cluster, Subaru in Japanese |
| Alfa Romeo | the red cross of Milan and a serpent from an old Milanese family crest |
| Chevrolet bowtie | origin disputed: wallpaper, a newspaper ad or a doodle? |
Rules logo designers use
- Works at 2 cm wide and on a giant sign.
- Readable in one colour (stamped in chrome or printed in black).
- One idea, not five.
- Means something to the people who see it, and doesn’t borrow a culture’s symbols without permission.
Parking-lot colour count
From the sidewalk, tally the colours of 50 parked cars. Make a bar graph. Does it match the 2024 report?Why might more people choose white, grey, black and silver?
Interiors & ergonomics
The inside of a car is where people actually live with the design.
Designing for real bodies
Designers use anthropometric data (body measurements) so the seat, wheel and pedals fit drivers from small to tall: often from a small adult woman to a tall adult man. They check reach, headroom, sight lines over the hood and through mirrors, and how easy it is to get in and out.
Accessibility matters too: hand controls, swivel seats, wheelchair-accessible vans and large, high-contrast displays.
A hot design debate
- Touchscreens are cheap and flexible, but you have to look at them.
- Physical buttons and knobs can be found by feel, even with winter gloves on.
- From 2026, Euro NCAP’s safety ratings favour physical controls for indicators, hazard lights, horn, wipers and the SOS call.
Design for safety: mirrors, head restraints and seats should be adjusted before driving. Set up music, maps and climate while parked. A well-designed interior is one where the driver can do everything important without looking away from the road for long.
Interior audit
Sit in a parked car (passenger or driver’s seat, engine off). Rate 5 controls: can you find them without looking? With gloves on? Sketch the dashboard and mark the best and worst.Why might a design that works for an average-sized person fail many real people?
Concept cars & designing your own vehicle
Concept cars show what designers dream about. Now it’s your turn.
Dreams with wheels
Start with people, not looks
- Who will use it? (a farmer, a nurse on night shifts, a family of six, a wheelchair user)
- Where? Edmonton in January? A northern road? A city with tight parking?
- Limits: budget, safety, energy, size, cargo.
- Feeling: three words for how it should look and feel.
Drawing a believable side view
Brief to sketch
Write a design brief for one real person you know. Then draw a side view on grid paper (1 square = 25 cm), with a stick-figure driver for scale.Why do carmakers show concept cars that will never be built?
Quick self-check
Six questions, covering every stop. Show your thinking. Answers are upside down at the bottom; no peeking till you're done.
1 · Put these in order: CAD, clay, sketches, brief.
2 · Why do designers still use clay?
3 · What made the Mini’s design clever?
4 · What was North America’s most popular car colour in 2024?
5 · Why do some designers prefer physical buttons?
6 · What is a concept car for?
Re-shade your knowledge meter
How much do you know about the art & design of automobiles now? Flip back to p.3 and shade the meter again in pen (or shade this one). Did any of the four bricks on p.2 move from "Not yet" to "Got it"?
Sketch-to-clay concept
Write a brief, sketch, draw to scale and sculpt a clay model of a vehicle for one real person, just like a design studio.
1 · My brief
Who is it for, where will it drive, and what three words describe its feeling?
2 · Steps
- 12 thumbnail sketches; circle the best 2
- One clean side view on grid paper, with a stick figure for scale
- A clay model about 15 cm long (wheels from buttons or bottle caps)
- A name (Lens 6) and a simple badge
Badge sketches:
3 · Side view
1 square = 25 cm. Length: m · Height: m
4 · Must-haves
- Brief written for a real person
- Side view drawn to scale
- Clay model photographed from the side and front
- Feedback from the person it’s for
5 · What I found
What changed between your first sketch and your model? What would the person you designed for change?
Use child-safe modelling or air-dry clay and wash your hands afterwards. Use craft knives or sculpting tools only with an adult, cutting away from your body on a mat. If you measure a real car for scale, do it with the car parked and an adult present.
5 Questions
I Still Have
This module didn't answer everything. Good. Write 5 new questions it didn't answer, one of each type below. There are no wrong questions, only ones nobody's asked yet.
★ Star the one question you'd most like answered. You'll need it on the next page.
1What I'll find out
Break your big question into 2 or 3 smaller ones you could actually answer.
2Where I'll look
3How I'll share it
Who I'll share it with:
Done by: