Designing cars for a living
According to online salary information company Payscale, the median annual salary for automotive designers in the United States is $75,000, or more than P3.7 million. With experience, car designers can earn up to $120,000, or more than P6 million, a year.
ASK ANYONE who isn’t an enthusiast what they first consider when they think about their dream car. Chances are the most immediate response would be some variation of the phrase, “the one that looks the best”.
For responsible adults, picking cars isn’t as simple. One would have to consider aspects like performance, fuel economy, reliability, size, comfort, and of course, the cost. Only when all other checkboxes have been ticked off does design and color factor in.
And yet, people have been known to stall purchases because their chosen car wasn’t available in a certain color, or else choose a less efficient model because it looks better than the alternatives. It’s not a huge assumption to say that people pay big for good designs.
According to online salary information company Payscale, the median annual salary for automotive designers in the United States is $75,000, or more than P3.7 million. With experience, car designers can earn up to $120,000, or more than P6 million, a year.
Sadly though, to have a chance at a successful career in automotive and transportation design, Filipinos would have to venture abroad. While a course in Industrial Design or Product Design is offered in various universities in the country, to advance in the field of car design, more specialized training might be necessary.
Aspiring designers can pursue a degree in Transportation Design from US colleges like ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California or the College for Creative Studies ( CCS) in Detroit, Michigan, where they can hone their skills and build their career network. On its Web site, ArtCenter boasts of its alumni becoming the top designers and executives at GM, Tesla and Nissan. CCS, meanwhile, claims to put more design graduates into the transportation industry than any other school in the US, with its alumni securing positions at companies like Volvo, Chrysler, and Ford.
In Torino, Italy, the Transportation Design course from Instituto Europeo di Design ( IED) offers training on designing the primary means of transport and capable of designing a number of different kinds of vehicle. Students from the course are expected to be able to “reconcile aspects of style, aerodynamics, feasibility, design and ergonomics,” and regularly collaborate with companies like Ferrari and Hyundai.
For students wishing to submit their portfolios closer to home, they can try the Kyoto University of Art & Design in Japan, or the Hongik University and Korea National University of Arts in South Korea.
While not exactly inexpensive — the tuition alone from pursuing a degree in the US can run up to more than $ 100,000, or P5 million — these courses will give newbie designers the head start they need to make their name in the field and brush elbows with the biggest names in the automotive industry. Perhaps someday the entry to the world of car design will be more readily available here in the Philippines, and maybe then Filipino talent might be able to shine like it already does in the worlds of animation, fashion, and visual arts. But for now, for the truly serious would- be car designers, their ambitions are still a plane ride away. —