Daimler has promoted its current head of design, Gorden Wagener, to the newly created role of chief design officer. Wagener is the man behind Mercedes-Benz’s Sensual Purity design language, and succeeded Peter Pfeiffer when the latter retired in 2008.
Wagener’s work can be seen in nearly every model offered by the German automaker from the A-Class right up to the flagship Mercedes-AMG GT. He was also responsible for previous Mercedes models such as the CLS, SL, SLK, SLR McLaren and SLS AMG.
Since mid-2008, Wagener has been at the helm of Daimler’s design unit, which operates Advanced Design Studios in California, Italy and China, plus five other locations. He has been credited with broadening the Three-Pointed Star’s appeal to younger buyers (i.e. Mercedes’ compact cars range). His newly-appointed position shows Daimler’s emphasis on the importance of design to the brand.
Wagener was born on September 3, 1968 in Essen, Germany. After securing his Industrial Design degree at the University of Essen, he went on to specialise in transportation design at The Royal College of Art in London. Before joining Mercedes-Benz in 1997, he worked as an exterior designer for various brands, including Volkswagen.
“Good design is much more than simply creating beautiful products: it combines function with fascination and gives brand values an unmistakable form. We are delighted that, under the leadership of Gorden Wagener, our design team is among the best in the industry. Because the global sales success of our vehicles is, after all, in part due to their outstanding design,” said Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz.
Moving forward, Wagener and his team will support Mercedes-Benz’s CASE development philosophy – connectivity (connected), autonomous driving (autonomous), flexible use (shared and services) and electric drive systems (electric).
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They should employ the head of design for Proton Iriz as the chief design officer at Daimler. After all, Iriz design is so special, happening and hot…membara panas.
Good…change the design of all merz cars…so ugly…look like apek…cannot stand the headlights…one headlights fit all…enuff…the previous generation models across the board are wayyyy better looking than the current ones…focus on better design for all the suvs…they are so ugly…take this as a constructive comment…change for the better…make the design more contemporary and vibrant please…
Sack this merc designer
unlike P2 design,this one is the best
Merc has taken great strides to improve its design and it shows in its cars… I believe any design should have make us form an opinion ( good or bad)
For example..i like the way the A Class looks but hate the offsprings (gla cla0 The c class looks good in black but other than that it looks too feminine…. but to others..the opinion can be completely different ..which is mark of good and emotive design..even Lexus falls in this where their current offerings have massive split opinions..
What’s worse than bad opinion? Not having one… BMW falls in this list..Apart from the 6 series gran coupe..and maybe the x6 ..none of their other cars emote an opinion..not the 2,3,4,5…none..everytime a new one comes around and it’s just that.. a BMW… and i dont really buy the whole A BMW should look like a BMW thing e60 5 series is still a design masterpiece even today although many hate it as well.. Audi has quickly fallen into this as well..
A design should always have opinions..not having opinions is kinda insulting and worse than getting a bad opinon ….IN my opinion :P…
Well said
Mercs design was fine, there was no need to improve, the boxy design of the 80 was a mercedes work, and it was so good everyone started copying it but not everyone could do it as good as mercedes, so now most people have that mindset that boxy cars are crummy and have terrible aerodynmmic, and people generally grew tired of the look, now what do we have? Ass ugly cars all in the shape of electric shavers or eggs
This punk turned mercedes benz into something that looks like a fat hyundai with some make up and star badge on the front.
Is there even a difference in position?
All his work sucks ass, fire him, he ruined mercedes benz styling