Reading People, Designing the Future
- Kia's CMF (Color, Material, Finish) design begins with understanding people. We look closely at cultures and
- lifestyles across the world, observing what matters to people and how they adapt to change.
- How do today's emerging cultural movements become tomorrow's design? We spoke with Marilia Biill,
- Head of Kia CMF Design, about how Cultural Seeds discovered around the world inspire the ideas that
- evolve into future CMF design.
- Kia's CMF (Color, Material, Finish) design begins with understanding people. We look closely at cultures and lifestyles across the world, observing what matters to people and how they adapt to change. How do today's emerging cultural movements become tomorrow's design? We spoke with Marilia Biill, Head of Kia CMF Design, about how Cultural Seeds discovered around the world inspire the ideas that evolve into future CMF design.
Why Do We Look at Cultural Movements?
Marilia Biill, Head of Kia CMF Design, believes that design begins with understanding people's lives and cultures.
Through the Global Movements Book, I wanted to strengthen the connection between Kia designers and the people we design for. This year, under the theme of “Cultural Seeds,” we focused on the cultural movements that can lead to positive changes. In the midst of a global crisis, how are people around the world responding to change? And how can those movements inspire and motivate us? This project began with these questions.
How Can Small Everyday Actions Become Seeds of Change?
Even amid global crises and rapid change, people find their own ways to recover and adapt. We call these movements we discover in cultures and everyday life around the world, Cultural Seeds.I don't believe that change for the better only begins with something grand. Change begins in people's everyday lives — in the small choices we make to care for ourselves, the ways we connect with one another, the fresh perspectives we bring to what is familiar. We call the possibilities we discover around the world Cultural Seeds. The five seeds each grow in their own way, leading to new inspiration for the future.
Cultural Seeds do not grow only from major change. They begin with small everyday actions: taking a moment to care for oneself, choosing to share resources with others, or reinterpreting traditions and memories through a contemporary lens.
Kia looks closely at these movements, discovering the power of recovery, new possibilities, and the potential for positive change.
Tracing Roots
First, we return to the roots of a region. Looking into the region's history, historical background, and ways of life, we come to understand the values that have shaped the life of today.
Blooming Motion
How are ways of life changing right now? Next, we look at life today. We read the emerging cultural movements in people's behaviors and lifestyles.
Seeding Tomorrow
Finally, we turn our eyes to the future. Expanding the insights gained from people's lives into the perspective of future mobility and CMF design, we envision the new possibilities they hold.
How Do We Read the Flow of Culture?
Understanding culture is about more than observing what is happening today. It means looking at where a movement began, how it is evolving in the present, and what possibilities it may create for the future. Following the Cultural Seeds discovered across five regions, Kia begins a journey that connects the past, present, and future.
How Do We Read the Flow of Culture?
Understanding culture is about more than observing what is happening today. It means looking at where a movement began, how it is evolving in the present, and what possibilities it may create for the future. Following the Cultural Seeds discovered across five regions, Kia begins a journey that connects the past, present, and future.
Tracing Roots
First, we return to the roots of a region. Looking into the region's history, historical background, and ways of life, we come to understand the values that have shaped the life of today.
Blooming Motion
How are ways of life changing right now? Next, we look at life today. We read the emerging cultural movements in people's behaviors and lifestyles.
Seeding Tomorrow
Finally, we turn our eyes to the future. Expanding the insights gained from people's lives into the perspective of future mobility and CMF design, we envision the new possibilities they hold.
What Future Do These Five Stories Point Toward?
Across the diverse cultures of five regions, we discovered a movement they share. Even in times of uncertainty and change, people are reconnecting with communities, reinterpreting cultural heritage, and seeking better ways of living between nature and technology.
Kia learns from these cultural movements and seeks to transform the possibilities they reveal into responsible design for people and the planet.
The insights discovered through culture become inspiration for future CMF design. Kia connects cultural heritage with innovation, reimagines the relationship between nature and technology, and brings delightful colors, sensorial materials, and a distinctive Kia attitude that people can relate to into its design.
Seeds become design, and design moves the future.Kia plants possibilities in today's culture and nurtures the design of tomorrow.
