Jason Castriota has a reputation for blending the romance of supercar design (Ferrari, Maserati) with the modern recasting of a car's heritage. "I take its philosophy and then push that aesthetic forward," he says. So it's no surprise that, just a year into his stint as Saab's design director, Castriota is revving things up. His bold, futuristic PhoeniX concept car was unveiled in March -- and immediately drew a polarized response. "It created a tremendous amount of controversy," Castriota says. "It was a manifesto." The new Saab 9-3 he's designing will hit dealers in 2012.
A slideshow tour of Castriota's PhoeniX concept car.
Castriota's PhoeniX concept car has generated a tremendous amount of buzz for the brand.
Photographs courtesy of Saab
Q: What does your typical day look like?
A: It depends where I am in the world -- but If I am on the east coast my day is as follows:
5:30 a.m.: Wake up and begin to tackle my emails from Europe (approximately 40 per morning by this hour), design images to review, engineering criteria for review, marketing/pr requests, budget planning/revisions, travel itineraries, and journalist requests/questions.
7:00 a.m.: Get online to see what is going on in the world (CNN and various automotive sites).
7:30 a.m.: Sketching while carrying on phone calls to project leaders based in Europe.
8:30 a.m.: Web Review of design models with my two Chief CAD modelers.
9:30 a.m.: Conference calls with the design and engineering teams or more emails to design, engineering, and/or marketing teams.
11:00 a.m.: My hour of Zen -- athletic training of some kind to clear my mind.
12:15 p.m.: Leave for NY office (conference calls during drive).
11:15 p.m.: Power lunch with my NY team (discussion on design/strategy/finance/biz dev).
2:30 p.m.: Get into office and work on previous discussion pts/ emails/ design.
5:00 p.m.: Return home (traffic means longer commute but will fill time with phone calls to Europe for end of the day review).
7:00 p.m.: Dinner with my family.
8:30 p.m.: Downtime with my significant other.
10:00 p.m.: Sketching/reviewing of new ideas.
11:00 p.m.: Calls and email exchange with my California based designers -- check what is going on in the world.
12:00 a.m.: Bed.
5:30 a.m.: Wake up and begin to tackle my emails from Europe (approximately 40 per morning by this hour), design images to review, engineering criteria for review, marketing/pr requests, budget planning/revisions, travel itineraries, and journalist requests/questions.
7:00 a.m.: Get online to see what is going on in the world (CNN and various automotive sites).
7:30 a.m.: Sketching while carrying on phone calls to project leaders based in Europe.
8:30 a.m.: Web Review of design models with my two Chief CAD modelers.
9:30 a.m.: Conference calls with the design and engineering teams or more emails to design, engineering, and/or marketing teams.
11:00 a.m.: My hour of Zen -- athletic training of some kind to clear my mind.
12:15 p.m.: Leave for NY office (conference calls during drive).
11:15 p.m.: Power lunch with my NY team (discussion on design/strategy/finance/biz dev).
2:30 p.m.: Get into office and work on previous discussion pts/ emails/ design.
5:00 p.m.: Return home (traffic means longer commute but will fill time with phone calls to Europe for end of the day review).
7:00 p.m.: Dinner with my family.
8:30 p.m.: Downtime with my significant other.
10:00 p.m.: Sketching/reviewing of new ideas.
11:00 p.m.: Calls and email exchange with my California based designers -- check what is going on in the world.
12:00 a.m.: Bed.
These videos show Castriota's design process for creating Saab's PhoeniX concept car.
Q: Who is the most creative person you know?
A: Paolo Martin, one of the greatest and most unsung heroes of car design. While at Pininfarina in the 1960's, he created what I would argue as the two poles of Pininfarina design -- the Dino Competizione, which is soft, sensual, and agile, and the Ferrari Modulo, an extreme geometric speed form that's elegant yet brutally simple. He is the prototypical mad genius: Obsessive compulsive, insanely talented and has an ability to actually engineer and fabricate his designs. One time he was commissioned to design a scooter. When the client came to his study expecting to see design renderings, Paolo burst out of his garage riding on a functional prototype of his design, which he fabricated himself!
"Leonardo da Vinci embodied what inspires me most about design -- trying to find a beautiful solution to a technical problem."
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