A French way on the World - RENAULT ZEEK Z.E
(Pos-Graduation Automotive and Transportation Design)
The main focus of the final project was to create a compact electric commercial vehicle based on an original package (Aixam Mega Van from 2003).
The design of the new electric vehicle had to be influenced by design ideologies of one of three car brands (Citroen, Peugeot and Renault) and specifically made to work exceptionally well on one of three major cities (Tokyo, Hong Kong and New Delhi)
To start off, I had to pick a brand and city, I went with Renault and New Delhi.
The first faze was research various aspects from both New Delhi and Renault vehicles, my focus was to create something believable, a design that was iconic and not "out of place" next to vehicles of the same brand.
Renault has been changing the design of its vehicles quite extensively in the recent years, the end results are usually quite interesting, refreshing and new. Since the idea was to create a commercial vehicle, I focused my attention to the Kangoo and Trafic. My idea was to make a design in between the Kangoo/Trafic and the Twizy, although, I felt the need to include some aspects from another Renault model, the Megane's headlights looked very iconic and the Twingo's side stripe also could be something that could be implemented to better place my electric commercial vehicle, in the Renault family.
Concept Sketches and Development
This was the design I decided to go with
The next step was creating the clay model of the vehicle, a great way to actually feel and see what the end result could look like. This is also a good time to make some changes on the fly and have instant feedback because, contrary to making the vehicle in a 3D program or in Photoshop, you can see and feel changes to the design.
Clay Model - Making of
By this time, I started changing the design, I began to make the vehicle based on concept designs of Renault vehicles, I took photos of the clay model and head over to Adobe Photoshop to get a better understanding of the visual aspect I wanted.
But soon I felt a big disconnect of what I had, my previous design was something much more Renault and enjoyable. I wasn't unhappy with this new design, It actually could have resulted in something interesting if I went forward with it, but personally, I like a lot more my previous design.
And so...I went back again and redid the clay model.
Now that I had the desired design of my commercial vehicle, I could start doing the digital renders. I decided to do the renders manually on Photoshop, by overlaying them to a picture of the clay model, also making some changes to some aspects (like headlights, front grill, etc) , yet keeping faithful to my original design and not going too crazy.
Final Result and Renders
