The future of transportation and mobility couldn’t be more exciting thanks to a whole new ecosystem of EVs, renewable energy powered vehicles and connected technologies !

Apoorv Garg, our next pathbreaker, works as Exterior Designer at Aerpace Industries, a company that aims to solve modern day mobility issues through the design and development of EVs, Drones and Solar powered Docks.

Apoorv talks to Shyam Krishnamurthy from The Interview Portal about leading the exterior design of the futuristic Alpine A4810 hypercar concept during his master’s program, after the selection of his proposal for a 1:1 prototype.

For students, understand that car design is challenging and needs more than just passion. Everyone in car design is passionate. So passion isn’t enough, one needs to be creative, highly skilled, good at communication and disciplined.

Apoorv, Your background?

I was born and bought up in a middle class family. We moved from the village to the city when I was 4 years old and I was always a curious child seeing the new life around me. I was somehow always curious about technology and gadgets.

Gradually, I started finding cars fascinating. Me and my brother used to be very excited whenever we sat inside a new car. My extended family had a ford Icon and when I sat in it for the first time I was very excited. Then I started to find cars on the road and try to guess the name.

My family also had a Maruti 800, then upgraded to Zen and then to Tata Indica. These cars weren’t the most exciting for me but in 2006 when my dad decided to buy a brand new car for the first time I was just too excited and started visiting showrooms with my dad and brother. We visited the Maruti and  Hyundai showrooms and finally decided to buy the Hyundai Accent.

This was the turning point for me, as was l thinking about cars all the time. New cars were launching in India. I would look at car images in the newspaper. I used to buy a car magazine every month.

Then one day I started sketching Honda civic in 2006 from a newspaper ad. The next day I was sketching in the classroom and then I never stopped.

I was also interested in technology and science at that time. The Internet just arrived and I would explore the internet to see the world we never did. Another interest I had was cricket.

What did you do for graduation/post graduation?

I did bachelors in Automobile Engineering from SRM University, Chennai and I did my Masters in Transportation Design from IED Torino, Italy.

What were some of the key influences that led you to such an offbeat, unconventional, and unique career in Automotive Design?

My key influencers are Ratan Tata, Chris Bangle, Walter Di Silva, as well as some designers at Tata Motors that I met during my internship.

I won 2nd Price at the Automotive design workshop at VIT Vellore, by Emanuele Nicosia (Famous designer who worked on Ferrari’s)

At very early stage, since I was 14 years old, I just could not stop sketching cars everywhere and sketching cars felt better than anything else

How did you plan the steps to get into the career you wanted? Or how did you make a transition to a new career? Tell us about your career path

So after my 10th grade I took science as I was always interested in science stream,and thought of going to IIT for an engineering degree, as I felt that being an engineer was one of the ways to get into the car industry. But deep down I wanted to be a designer though I didn’t know any college or school in India, and going abroad seemed too expensive. Because of this lack of knowledge I continued to pursue IIT. But when I didn’t get through the JEE advance exam, I was looking for colleges with Automotive Engineering courses. I was also considering going to Transportation Design at DSK Pune or DYPDC, Pune but they seemed too expensive and I felt it was not worth it.

Then I decided to finally join SRM Chennai for automotive engineering and initially was happy but also skeptical since it was engineering not design. But gradually I started loving automotive engineering. I realised my love was for both Cars and Design. Hence engineering was a lot of fun. During engineering I joined the 4Ze Racing Team where we students built an electric formula student car for the formula student competition (a student version of F1). Here, I worked on chassis, steering, and vehicle dynamics systems. Our car also won the competition in 2017.

In 2017, I went for an internship at Tata motors. I wanted to apply for a design internship but they wouldn’t offer me one as I was not studying design but they offered me one in engineering. In order to apply for a design internship, I even gave them my portfolio which included my personal projects that I used to do as a hobby, as I was always sketching or 3D modelling on my laptop. Hence, I put together a portfolio with the best of my work. But they still did not accept my request. So I joined the engineering department at TATA MTORS as an intern where I met some designers during coffee and lunch breaks. They used to see my work and guide me on how I can pursue my career, and the challenges as well. Hence, I was mentally prepared to face those challenges if I did plan to go for masters in Design. At Tata Motors, I worked on EV development and simulation. Later I joined Mahindra and Mahindra Automotive division through campus placement and worked there for 2 and half years.

In 2019, while working at Mahindra I got a call from my IAAD college and they accepted my application for Masters in Transportation design.

So all this time I had this dream and suddenly I realized I can finally pursue my dream. Hence I applied to other colleges as well and joined IED Torino for masters to finally pursue my long-awaited dream.

During this phase, I knew designers at Tata and Mahindra who helped me to pick the college and prepare early before admission. They would review my sketches on WhatsApp and help me improve. I wanted to be ahead of my classmates before joining IED in 2020 as I knew competition would be tough.

How did you get your first break?

In Design, I got my first break through campus recruitment drive where companies such as Ferrari, FIAT, Italdesign and Pininfarina came to pick designers.

I was selected by Italdesign for an exterior design internship.

Italdesign Giugiaro is an Automotive design studio founded by the legendary designer Giorgetto Giugiaro and later owned by VW group. Italdesign is famous for designing legendary cars such as Delorean DMC 12, VW Golf, BMW M1 and Lotus Esprit and many more. They do work on design, engineering and even prototyping for clients around the world as well as for the VW Group brands such as Audi and Lamborghini. They have clients around the world notably from China, Europe, US and Japan.

I worked as an Exterior Design Intern where I have to develop creative design proposals for client projects through sketches and renderings. As a designer my role was to bring creative design ideas for exterior design projects such as EV sedans and SUVs for Chinese market.

A brief is given by the car company i.e. the client on which we ideate the exterior, bring fresh forms, volumes and graphics. The objective is to deliver high quality sketches with multiple views in a realistic rendering.

Once the design is submitted by each designer the winning design goes forward for development where a team of designers work on the design proposal to develop it and a team of 3D modelers collaborate to sculpt the model in 3D. In the part of the process, I have to sketch, render as well as collaborate with other designers and modelers as well as CMF and prototyping and visualization team.

What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you address them?

Challenge 1: Skills,

It’s important to be skilled in car design and one needs to be the absolute best. Car design can be frustrating as improving skills takes lots of time and patience. Hence, I worked on my skills day and  night to improve my sketching, 3D modelling or any design skill.

I had to constantly go through failures or try again and again until I finally improved or achieved what I was looking for. Hence, consistently pushing and keep on trying is the key

Challenge 2: Creativity

Creativity is a completely different game. Anyone can be creative but designers often get stuck and keep making the same forms and shapes. To be more creative there were various things I did:

  1. Defined a process that helped me to be more creative. Before sketching anything I would go through multiple images, take inspiration from non-automotive fields and make moodboards that describe my design better.
  2. Make a huge library of good portfolios, projects and products. This helps to have a wide variety of tastes and perspectives.
  3. Be open minded and explore other art fields, look at photography, movies, or any other areas of life for inspiration.

Challenge 3 Feedback

In order to improve, I used to ask my friends and colleagues for feedback. I used to focus on what they had to say. Usually taking feedback constructively is very important in design. If one has to improve they have to understand how to access feedback. Not everything in feedback has to be applied but taking feedback positively and working on what is important is necessary to improve in design. I always used to ask for feedback and work on it.

Where do you work now? What problems do you solve?

I work at Aerpace Industries as an exterior designer

Aerpace Industries has multiple ventures including Defense Drones, renewable energy, connected technology as well mobility including EV and Passenger Drones. The company is working on R&D and plans to manufacture and deliver drones to the Indian Government.

Currently I am working on exterior design of EVs as well as exterior design of passenger drones. Our goal is to design an EV that is futuristic and aesthetically superior to completion. The EV and Drone work together as a mobility solution. The drone can carry the EV and passenger.

The ambition is for the drone to carry the EV. There are various new technologies that can make it possible. Drones don’t necessarily need to be electric and when we explore new powertrain options we see it’s not so unrealistic to carry something as heavy as an EV. With today’s technology and advanced engineering its not a distant dream but definitely challenging. We believe drones with alternate power can solve such problems.

Aerpace aims to solve modern day mobility issues by developing this whole ecosystem of EVs, Drones and Solar powered Docks.

What skills are needed for your role? How did you acquire the skills?

Skills such as sketching, problem solving, rendering, photoshop, blender, 3d modelling and communication are required. I learnt them during my masters at IED and on the job and during internships.

What’s a typical day like?

A typical day starts with checking with colleagues on the current progress. We check design sketches and 3D models and see what the progress is like. We discuss what needs to be updated on sketches or models.

Sometimes we also discuss new design trends, car launches and important industry news. We go for a coffee break and lunch with the team.

When a project starts, we have meetings to discuss project research, timeliness and requirements, objectives and deliverables. We have group meetings in the evening with interior design, CMF and 3D Modelers to understand their work progress and approach.

What is it you love about this job?

I get to design the future of transportation, cars, mobility and much more.

How does your work benefit society?

Design can be impactful and change how people live, behave and feel. I aim to improve people’s lives through design.

Tell us an example of a specific memorable work you did that is very close to you!

Alpine A4810, it’s a dream come true.

For our final year collaboration project, every year a brand comes and asks students to design a car for them, that we also make in 1:1 concept car for auto shows such as Geneva. This is a huge opportunity and a dream.

So during my masters 2nd year in 2021, it was Renault – Alpine. Alpine is a sports car brand from France and is famous for making light weight sports cars.

Alpine gave the brief to our class of 28 students, to design a Hydrogen powered hyper-car super Berlinetta for 2035 and we had 6 weeks to sketch and present to Alpine design director Antony Villain and Chief Designer Rafale. It was an intense competition. We worked work day and night for 15-20 hours daily. It was not easy as I had few bad reviews during this phase with the project coordinator but I kept improving and working on my proposal.

Ultimately the Design director and Alpine chief designers loved my proposal and they picked it in top 4. After that, 4 teams were made of 7 each and asked to improve further for 2 weeks and then they would pick the winner.

After 2 weeks of working on my design with my other 6 colleagues I won the proposal. During these 2 weeks I worked even harder, asked others for feedback and improved the design. After that, I led the design and modeling team to finish the car design with details and give it to them for prototyping. It took 2 months for it to be made after we gave the design to the model makers.

When I saw the car for the first time, It was unreal. It was a dream come true to see in reality what I have sketched and designed. It looked absolutely gorgeous. Here is the picture of the car when I saw it for the first time after it was made.

Your advice to students based on your experience?

The industry has evolved a lot with AI and new design trends.

I suggest following to students:

Understand that car design is challenging and needs more than just passion. Everyone in car design is passionate. So passion isn’t enough, one needs to be creative, highly skilled, good at communication and disciplined.

Money: Car design is not about becoming rich. People who design Ferrari don’t necessarily drive a Ferrari. So if you just want to be rich or want to be a car designer for money then this might not be the right place.  In car design you earn well and can be rich but car design has never been about money.

Work on yourself: As I explained, to be a car designer one needs to be skilled and creative. So if you want to start right, explore sketching different objects, humans, understand anatomy, proportions. Make a library of designs, explore movies, films and other creatives.

Future Plans?

I have some cars for Indian roads that I have worked on. I want my work to impact automotive design in India positively.

I also want to explore product, furniture, apparel design as a personal interest.