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An Interview with an Excellent Chinese Designer Chelsia Lau

Ms. Chelsia Lau, the chief designer of Ford, with a 13-year experience in the field of auto design, has directed the design for several models of Ford SUV, including Explorer, Mountaineer, SpartTrac, Expedition and Navigator. Beforetime she graduated from Hong Kong Lee Wai Lee Technical Institute and then the famous America’s Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.

VisionUnion:How do you do, Chelsia? As an auto designer, what do you consider the most delightful thing to be?
Chelsia Lau: Auto designers face different challenges and examinations every day. Every new auto design is also a brand new creative practice. Thus every day’s work is full of stimuli. There are so many delightful things… I remembered when I started work in auto design, I was always greatly delighted at times when my proposal was chosen to be further studied or was adopted as the theme to develop. Despite the ever-growing accumulation of practices and experiences in design, one of the latest experiences is the most unforgettable to me…
It happened on some day this November, when I was driving on the road, catching sight of a truck parking next to my car, on its transporting journey, loading 10 more 2006 Ford Explorer SUVs designed by me. I gazed at it, being much excited at the moment. Though I was very familiar with that design because I was wholly involved in the whole Product Development Process from concept inception to mass production, the excitement from heart is still hard to describe when I saw my design being on road at the first glance. All I could say is that I was really happy and proud.

VisionUnion: As the chief designer of Ford SUVs, what is your main responsibilities?
Chelsia Lau: As the chief designer, the most important task of mine is to set directions of design for the SUVs of brands under the Ford flag – for example, Ford, Lincoln and Mercury, including Explorer, Mountaineer, Sport Trac, Expedition and Navigator. I also oversee those vehicles’ shape design and inner-decoration design, from preliminary sketching to 3D engineering, plasticine modeling and theme-choosing, as well as latter product development and mass-producing.
A clear theory of design is that we must understand customers’ requirements. Every design is unique, and it is a brand new exploration each time we design a new car. The product’s lifecycle in the motor industry is longer than those in other industries. Hence we need to predict customer’s requirements many years after.
To guarantee a successful car design, I have to set up clear design theoretics and guide my design team. My team members are all talented designers and specialists, not only understanding customer’s needs but also working out designs beyond customer’s expectations to improve their life qualities.
When I was a designer, the main task of mine was to carry out specific design work such as sketching. There is a diversion in the role with my present working position, which is of higher grade management. Now I have to look a little further, and I mainly direct my design team to work. As you know, there are many designers in a studio. Some does the shape design while others the inner-decoration designs. It is my responsibility to guarantee the design’s unification and consistency. All those are my job.

VisionUnion: As a successful female designer, do you have some successful experiences?
Chelsia Lau: In fact, despite a designer’s gender, the most important is whether he (or she) has design abilities, as well as abilities to cooperate with others. That’s because auto design is a teamwork, which single persons can not carry out. I am in deep love with auto design. When I studied design beforetime, I was the only female student in the whole class or even the whole grade. Meanwhile, when I recruit in some colleges such as Art Center – Art Center College of Design and CCS – College for Creative Studies, I could see a number of girl-students, more than that at my learning age. But boy-students are still now in the majority. Persistence is also important. I saw many students changed their professions from auto design, which is their majority in school. Hence it is difficult to persevere.