#7 CDA Design Competition: Designing “The 1-seater super compact EV”

In October 2018, the 7th CDA Design Competition was held. Mr. Toshio Yamashita judged all the submitted works from our students, and as you already might know, he is world renowned designer for designing the Nissan Z32 Fairlady and R34Skyline.
Mr. Yamashita had won numerous competitions in his wonderful career, and needless to say, he has a lot of knowledge and experience with the competition. We appreciate Mr. Yamashita carefully judging students’ works for the competition and sharing his many years of experience with us.
You will find more about Mr. Yamashita from here.

The past CDA Design competitions:｜1st｜2nd｜3rd｜4th｜5th｜6th

Theme: Designing“The 1-seater super compact EV”

We had received wide variety of ideas ranging from a car would best suit the individual’s need to high publicity and a fling car. It would be a good opportunity to know that how understandings of the theme are varying from individual to individual.

We set the following three evaluation criteria that were also used in the previous competition: “Consistency between the theme and the concept,” “Development of the ideas” and “Sketching skills.” In this time, there was a tendency that a person who presented his concept which stays consistent with the theme and the design has realism gains higher points.
When professional car designers view the works, those works clearly enhance how much students are engaged in. As like that, the judges could find students’ strong motivation from the works in this time, and the most of works also showed students’ effort in creating designs; therefore the judges had to be careful with evaluating each work and it was very hard to selecting winners as same as the previous competition.

Competition Results.

Grand Prize:
Mr.Tashirofrom Japan.

【Judge’s Comments】
He gets the highest score at “Consistency between the theme and the concept.” His concept is appropriate with the theme of competition, and his idea development and skills are highly evaluated by judges. It is much different from existed cars today. The car he has designed is not only a tool for transportation, but also provides a thing that is exactly needed for the people. This approaching is very unique and interesting. Indeed, it also gives us to feel a possibility of a new car. Also, when he applies his ideas onto the object, the design enhances functional aspects and it is well balanced with the design.
However, his rendering does not excel the attractiveness of his idea sketches. To be specific, the design in his idea sketches is all expressed with a hard material texture. On the other hand, the surface of body looks using a soft material in the front view. (This was affected by a gray brash when painting.) And, all three views are drawn in same level. For showing his ideas more, he is supposed to focus to draw just one view which he would like to show the most. Then, it will be brought a big difference between the view he would like to show the most and the rest of views, and judges will understand his intentions more. It will be further better when he can improve these points.

The 2nd Prize:
Mr. Anton Rutkovskij

【Judge’s Comments】
The viewers can understand his unique idea of combining both a car and VR. Usually, it is difficult to express that’s kind of idea because of its complexity; however he is succeeded to express it by the rendering with realism and sketches that show the structure. These are evaluated highly by the judges. The judges received an impression that he already knows what is needed for explaining these characteristics of the design.
The difference between him and the Grand Prize is a completion level. The judges also pointed out that to be compared with the front, his design in the rear; especially the shape of rear combination ramp does not fit to the entire design. (In this case, designers often express this situation as a word, “unfulfilled.”) The front is a main in this design; therefore he was supposed to complete the front correctly (He succeeds it this time!), and even if the quality of rendering for the rear view was dropping down, he was supposed to raise the design completion level. Then, there might be a possibility of the Grand Prize for him.

The 3rd Prize:
Mr. Predrag Stajic Strandhag

【Judge’s Comments】
His expressions and presentation are highly evaluated. However, regarding his design, the judges pointed out that the development of idea sketches is not stretched enough and it is not considered well. The concept of flying car gains big attentions. If he can consider more the form to be unique and develop the sketches more, his whole attractiveness will be increased.

You will see more Winners’ Works!
A slide show starts when clicked the image.

Let’s watch a short movie of the #7 CDA Design Competition!

At this competition, all works were divided into 3 groups based on each student’s level of ability, and judged. Mr. Yamashita explained details about sketching ability level differences in each group, and also he told us an effective order of presentation from idea development to structuring and finalizing. Furthermore, he taught us how to present sketches attractively. We are certain that these his advice will be a great help to students with their design activities.

We have been releasing all of our past CDA Design Competitions’ judging results and winning works on our education platform, and only CDA students are able to access it at any time.
We believe that it helps the students to improve by knowing their evaluations from judges, and to gain a way how to win the competition.
Would you like to know more about our competition? Are you having any concerns in learning car design? We can hold an online video conference, “Free Individual Information Session” with you. You will be able to talk with our top designer.
Please feel free to apply “Free Individual Information Session” from here.