Karim Habib, the chief of design for BMW automobiles, recently spoke at a SAP Design Talk event in Germany. SAP started as a German company in 1972 and describes itself as the market leader in enterprise application software. Its SAP Design Talk series of lectures brings international design leaders to speak to SAP employees around the world.
Karim Habib (46) is BMW’s chief of design, having taken over from Adrian van Hooydonk in 2012. Habib was educated in Canada and Switzerland. He first started working for BMW in 1998 on the exterior of the 7 Series. He left BMW for Mercedes-Benz in 2009 but returned to BMW in 2011. Among the BMWs on which Habib has worked are the E60 5 Series, the F01 7 Series, the X6, X3, 6 Series Gran Coupe, and the BMW The Next 100 Years concept.
As the person responsible for the design of our favorite vehicles, Habib can provide us with a look at how he and his team think about the task of translating ideas into designs and working with engineers to turn the designs into realities, at least at BMW. The following video presents some of his highlight insights on the topic.
Habib believes that while form follows function, the design process is much more complex and includes incorporating emotion into the design. We can certainly understand that. What diehard BMW enthusiast doesn’t think of his or her Bimmer in emotional as well as technical terms?
As both an engineer and a designer, Habib is well-positioned to appreciate the relationship between the two disciplines. In fact, he thinks there is no single more important aspect when it comes to designing cars and is one of the reasons BMW has had the success that it has.
When asked what was the most rewarding part of his job, Habib responded, “I’ve been doing this job for many years now, and somehow I seem to find something new every time I design a car. When a car is well proportioned and I see the finished product on the road at a certain angle and in a certain light and it just looks good, that’s an amazing feeling. But sometimes there are moments in the process when I notice that we have managed to have a breakthrough and create something totally new. I love that because it is a complete surprise. That’s the most gratifying part of my job.”
The SAP interviewer tried to pin down Habib with the leading question, “What is your favorite BMW?” Karim replied that since he thinks the company can always design a better car, his favorite is always the next one.
Good answer, but we still want to know what is his favorite of all the ones BMW has built so far.—Scott Blazey
[Photo and video courtesy of SAP TV.]
