New Kia Soul wins iF design award
THE new Kia Soul, which celebrated its European premiere at the Frankfurt Motor Show 2013, has been awarded the “iF Product Design Award”.
In securing the prestigious iF design accolade, the second generation of the cult compact SUV (sport utility vehicle) – which is already on sale in North America and will go on sale across Europe in March – continues the award-winning ways of its predecessor.
Since it was launched in 1953, the annual iF product design award has been one of the world’s most important prizes for excellence in design.
The award has its origins in the “Formgerechte Industrieerzeugnisse” (Good Industrial Design) product shows initiated by Hannover Messe and is now one of the world’s largest design competitions.
In 2014, companies from 55 countries participated in the iF design award, submitting 3,249 designs in 17 categories to the iF product design award.
The new Kia Soul was honoured in the “Transportation Design” category.
The official presentation ceremony for the 2014 iF product design awards will take place on Feb 28 in Munich during the Munich Creative Business Week.
All the winning products will be on display for the first time at the new iF design exhibition in Hamburg’s HafenCity.
Additionally, all winners can be seen on the website www.ifdesign.de and can now also be viewed with the new iF design smartphone app.
The new Kia Soul was created by the Kia design team under the supervision of Kia Motors Corp president and chief design officer Peter Schreyer.
Many design elements of the muscular Kia Track’ster concept (presented at the 2012 Chicago Auto Show) are incorporated in the second-generation Kia Soul.
“The great challenge we faced when designing the second-generation model was to preserve the strong, individual character that made the Kia Soul so successful, and at the same time give the design new impulses,” said Schreyer.
“That is why I am so pleased about this prize, because it proves how impressively our design team has performed this task.”