I hate it when your feeds don’t work. I have an RSS feed for CDN but this article hasn’t crossed it and it was written around 10 days ago.
What we’ve got here is a good article that outlines who is doing what in the new structure at Saab Design.
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Castriota’s new appointment marks the shift from Saab’s former position – where the brand was an integrated company within GM – to its newfound placement as an independent automaker, with Castriota essentially filling the role previously occupied by Mark Adams, GM Europe’s Vice President of Design.
Perhaps befitting of Saab’s leftfield nature, the arrangement between Saab and Castriota is far from conventional: it is the first time an external consultant has been hired to fill an executive role within an existing design structure. We spoke with Castriota earlier this week and asked him whether he had himself been hired as the company’s new design director, or whether his company had been hired as an external consultancy to advise and work on the next generation products. “It’s actually a blend of both,” Castriota replied. “They have hired my consultancy to design the next generation of cars, but they have also given me an internal role of design director, as part of the leadership team, which is going to help define the future product strategy and the brand.”
CDN understands that Simon Padian, Saab’s current brand design chief, is still currently leading the internal design team and working alongside Castriota’s consultancy. Padian, who has headed Saab’s design studio since 2005, will report to Castriota while continuing to manage the internal team and running of the studio day-to-day. Castriota will sit on the company’s board and advise on the future design direction of the brand, reporting directly to Saab CEO Jan Ake Jonsson.
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Thanks to Perry for this link, in comments overnight.
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