PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

I hope that this hasn't been posted before, but I found it on Automobear.com and thought it was interesting. Pretty detailed analysis of the car; I had to check out the pictures to see what he was talking about:


"Lexus speaks of L-Finesse as being more contemporary, and more dynamic, than its design efforts in the past. Dynamism, for Lexus, comes from the visual contrast between two factors:
(1) Simplicity (or, as Lexus qualifies it, Incisive Simplicity);
(2) Elegance (Intriguing Elegance).

What is simplicity, in design? It might be details - such as headlamps - whose outlines are visible. It could be an assortment of cues that each have their place, with clearly defined beginning and endpoints. It may describe details whose forms are geometrically simple - constant-radii circles and equilateral triangles - and, of course, these might vary from the perfect form to varying degrees while still being simple.

The 2006 Lexus IS features all of these, in some measure - yet goes some way to play this simplicity against more complex, if nuanced, surfacing. We find the hood particularly interesting: a clamshell affair that curbs at the grille and does not quite extend from the headlamps where you might expect. Beyond the hood, the flanks bulge outwardly, lending the car a muscular stance that, viewed from dead-on front, is attractively assertive. To reign this in, the grille's furthermost lines are canted inward from the headlamps, and the grille itself features vertical slats. Think of the 'fattening' effect, on a person, of wearing a horizontally-striped T-shirt. Here, the vertical slats do exactly the opposite, even as the body itself extends horizontally. The contrast is a pleasing one; indeed, Lexus is finding the sophistication inherent in subtly-contrasting design.

Yet there is a more traditional form of dynamism in the new IS, too. Note the low positioning of the grille, relative to the headlights. This serves to make the grille a reference point – a static point – from which the body lines emanate and 'move' as light plays across them. The entry-level, ES300’s grille is positioned lower, too – but note that the cut-lines above an ES300’s headlights are blandly parallel to the headlights themselves. In the new IS, the headlights diverge from the surfacing of the hood. There is more sophistication here than Lexus has tried before.

For the first time ever on a Lexus, the surfacing is a talking point. Look at the base of the windshield, where the corners converge over the hood (an L-shape, perhaps?) This car plays, convexly and concavely, with light. Only the vertical surfaces – bumpers and flanks - recall the low-effort surfacing of the past. Indeed, flank design has been an Achilles Heel of Japanese design since time immemorial; as we once suggested, cut the front and rear fascias from a slew of Japanese mainstreamers, and it would be impossible to tell the carcasses apart from each other. It must be said, however, that things are better here than they were. We find it intriguing that Lexus has taken its former weakness – flanks too bland to fit the rest of the car – and turned it into a feature (i.e: the flanks are now designed to be slab-sided).

The weakness of the surfacing on the vertical panels, however, makes the rear end the weakest part of the design. The relatively slim tail-lights and large bumper make for large expanses of metal – metal which has not been given the same intricate treatment as, say, the hood (or, indeed, the trunk, with its smoothly curvaceous integration with the C-pillar and flanks). The intriguing lower valence panel, which houses the two tail-pipes, indicates what could have been.

That our greatest problems with the IS lie with its door mirrors speaks volumes for the progress Lexus has made. Yet those mirrors are, quite simply, atrociously cumbersome. Surely, both in the interests of aesthetics and of wind noise (which is traditionally - today, at least - greatest between the mirror and the side glass), it is worth putting the car back in the wind tunnel and correcting this! It is unclear with which combine harvester the obviously ill-fitting mirrors are shared, but such an afterthought does not belong on a luxury car – or any car that aspires toward inherent design at every point of its product development process.

In form, the new IS is less easily-comprehensible than the old car was, but still reasonably unchallenging to take in at a glance, and recall. Rather than toy with the form of the car, as BMW’s Chris Bangle is fond of doing, Lexus toys with the details, and plays subtly with the surfacing. We suspect that, for some, the pleasantly lucid form will be more appealing than a visual challenge – yet one might expect enthusiasts to enjoy analyzing the details, too, for there is a good deal more intricacy here than might first meet the eye (rear fascia apart).

Indeed, the Lexus enthusiast crowd can be pleased, for although the new IS seems less iconic than the old one, it is not pulling elements from someone else’s icon, either. All the while, it is still identifiable as an IS (even as the outgoing IS itself endured some brickbats, for being something of an E36 3 series copy in its proportions and surfacing). This is a first-generation IS detailed under a razor, one whose proportions have been stretched; surfacing judged under a magnifying glass, and form refined in a wind tunnel. It is the attention-to-detail that Lexus has always promised us – but, this time, with the product, rather than merely the organization.

Attention-to-detail across the board (i.e: homogeneous design) requires greater effort from the outset and, if the strategy is to create a relatively unchallenging vehicle, the process of homogeneous design is still an involved one. For instance, the L badge is a relatively simple element – yet note that the interior door handles resemble an inverted L in form. The front fascia is choc-a-bloc with L forms, both obvious (to ensure instant identity) and subtle (to keep the car fresh for a longer period). This concept of deliberate, yet nuanced, touches which are based on a desire to make a single, all-of-a-piece automobile - rather than a car-by-committee - is new territory for Lexus fans.

Where did this pleasantly surprising understanding of the nuanced world of branding come from? After all, the commercial success of the Japanese has regularly tempered by derision from some enthusiast corners, with (often valid) accusations of being derivative. The Japanese have certainly had a relatively uninspired approach to branding, preferring to derive their brands almost exclusively from today's customer desires rather than to try their luck on the market with a new approach befitting tomorrow. Indeed, Lexus itself started by sending a group of Toyota designers and engineers to California to watch (and photograph!) luxury car owners using their cars."

Enjoy...

XeroK00L

I'm pretty sure this is a repost, but I can't find the original post now.

Yeah, it's a pretty good design review.

Gojirra99

Yes, I think 1Sick probably posted it before . . .