It’s been a little over a year since the Proton-Geely partnership officially begun. Many exciting news have been announced since, especially Proton’s plans to launch a new model every year, as well as the impressively-specced Proton SUV. Now, it appears that the Proton Design division will be involved in some of Geely’s global projects. That’s right, you heard it here first.
Geely Design’s design director Guy Burgoyne said “the intent is only to expand and strengthen Proton Design. In my studio in Shanghai, we have so many projects – we are only going to be happy if Azlan can help me and take some of those projects off me, so we can spread this workload more. The intent is to make us to a point where we can support each other in a great way.”
Currently, about sixty individuals form the Proton Design team, which is led by chief designer Azlan Othman. Guy said Geely Design is pretty well spread out globally, with studios in Gothenburg (separate design team from Volvo), Hangzhou Bay, UK, Barcelona and California.
“When we have a new project, we try to offer that new product – in the theming stage – across as many studios as possible, so we get a real breadth of ideas and creativity,” said Guy.
Azlan added that “this synergy opens up Proton Design to a more international experience, in terms of process and manpower that we’re gonna have. Even now, we have a French and British guy in our team. So we’re slowly evolving and growing together with Geely, as a good mentor. So we’re learning from each other.”
The designing teams will work together with Geely Group’s design boss Peter Horbury, the man who was responsible for bestowing the Geely brand with its own identity. When asked on his vision for Proton Design, he said “I have to be honest, I don’t know an awful lot about your culture but it would be a shame if we can’t tap into that and bring that to life in our cars. I’m a great believer in reflecting your place of origin in a product; it adds something unique, something exotic into a car.”
So, what do you think? Any designers or visual artists out there feeling emboldened? Discuss below!
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Drb the majority P1 owner. Geely gotta do all dirty hardwork, superb smart Drb. Lel
That all about 49.9%
The words Drb and smart dont form a sentence.
And yet they smart to choose Geely. Perhaps those who think they not smart, is actually the one not smart.
DRB is a leech.After milking the nation dry with excessive bailouts of a few Billion RM,they just goyang kaki,loan their “chief designer” to geely.
Hello,one day Geely will become gila and walk out when all those politics from former jib cronies vendors start their ball game.
After all,an injection of rm170 juta as capital into protong by Geely is peanuts,compared to billions they are profiting from Volvo and mercedes.
Hahahaha!
So many news, rumors, discussion here and there, yet nothing is seen. Typical Proton style (remember their Saga hybrid?).
that was bafore P1 tied up with Geely, before they kicked out Tun’s crony suppliers and rotting deadwood freeloaders in the company. Thats why that old geezer wants to make P1 2.0.
Design is never Proton’s issue, build quality is. Hopefully Geely improves on this.
“…Design is never Proton’s issue”
Ha ha ha ha truly joke of the century.
Joke of the century is dugong vios morph into keli vios morph into Ultraman vios
You mean dugung , Keli , frog and darth Vader inspired cars
No matter how canggih the car looks like, once a Proton badge is there. Enough d! ppl talk, ppl see, ppl test drive, ppl won’t buy. The new Perdana is the best example.
Proton design team should be ashamed of themselves, kereta tak laku then suddenly now a part of international level design team (read : Volvo).
They should just stick to rebadging geely models as new saga, new persona, new Preve, new perdana.
And reduce the number of design team from 60 down to 4. Not very difficult to design a new grille, new sports rims. Theophilus can do a very good job there. As a stylist.
Typical half past six comment. Car Makers open design studios or outsource designs from Pininfarina or Italdesign among others for their next cars. Such design studios requires a number of designers and software. It’s not a mere 4-5 designers. The detailing and functionality of every aspect of a car have to be assessed by them and the manufacturer. Then it comes to the selection of materials and these process will be continuous.
If follow your logic P2 also should be ashamed too
proton design?
oh please dont ruin geely brand…
Cannot beat fugliness of jepunis cars on road, very irritating to eyes!
By sales, there is nothing to be ashamed.