Car Styling Design Grand Prize / Three Best Announcement

Background

The car design award was launched in Car Styling magazine starting with Vol.45 in 1984. It began as “Best Design of the Year” and continued with the subtitles “Golden Marker Award” and “Black Marker Award.” The award went on hiatus when Car Styling ceased publication, but with the magazine’s relaunch, it has been revived under the new name “Car Styling Design Grand Prize.”

Goals of the Car Styling Design Award

Needless to say, the automotive industry is a core industry in Japan, and its technological development capabilities and production power are at world-class levels. However, we believe that “the power of design” is essential for Japan to maintain high competitiveness in the future automotive industry, including electrification.

Despite being in the same Asian region, the internationalization of designers is nothing special at automotive companies in China, Korea, India, and other countries, where design capabilities are rapidly improving. Furthermore, design talent development is progressing at the national level.

On the other hand, the presence of design within Japan’s automotive industry is unfortunately still not high, and Japan is falling behind in terms of talent development. A similar situation is visible in educational settings, with a declining number of young people aspiring to automobile design.

In this context, this award aims to spotlight designers and design teams in automotive development, rigorously evaluate and honor them, improve the quality of Japanese car design, and enhance the global automotive industry through car designs that inspire admiration and aspiration worldwide.

We hope that the “Car Styling Design Grand Prize” we are establishing will contribute to the development of Japanese car design, cultivate a cultural foundation that provides aspiration and hope to future car designers, and serve as a beacon of light for young people aspiring to become car designers.

Car Styling Design Grand Prize

In restarting this award, we invited Shiro Nakamura*, Shuichi Misono*, and Masatoshi Arimoto* to the steering committee to discuss the nature of the award and established the basic policy of “an award that spotlights and evaluates individual designers and design teams in the field.” In considering the future development of this award, it was decided to restart this year targeting domestic vehicles and gradually expand the categories and domains covered by the award as it continues.

Looking to the future, we envision positioning it as a design award for the rapidly developing Asian automotive industry, and it was agreed to consider developing the award in stages as a future challenge.

*Shiro Nakamura: Former Executive Vice President and Global Design Officer of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. Currently President of SNDP (Shiro Nakamura Design & Associates)

*Shuichi Misono: Former Design Department Manager at Toyota Motor Corporation. President of Techno Art Research. Currently Advisor to JIDA.

*Masatoshi Arimoto: Former Associate Editor of Car Styling magazine. Pioneer of automotive design criticism in Japan. Currently freelance automotive design critic/journalist.

The steering committee requested Takumi Yamamoto*, who works in France after working for a European automaker, Harry Uden*, car designer and product designer, Shinichi Inada, professor at Musashino Art University, and Yuko Saito, CMF/interior designer, to serve as judges. They will play the role of selecting the grand prize in the final judging.

*Takumi Yamamoto: Established design studio Takumi YAMAMOTO in France after working as a Peugeot-Citroën designer.

*Harry Uden: Came to Japan from FORD UK. President of Envision Co., Ltd., a design consulting company, after working at DCI: Design Club International.

*Shinichi Inada: Former Chief Designer at Toyota Motor Corporation. Currently Professor in the Department of Craft and Industrial Design, Faculty of Art and Design, Musashino Art University.

*Yuko Saito: Product designer. Currently works as an independent CMF designer engaged in CMF development and trend analysis for various mobility products both domestically and internationally.

2025 Eligible Vehicles

The scope of this judging is limited to domestic manufacturers, with two categories: the “Best Production Car Category” for mass-production vehicles that went on sale domestically between November 1, 2024 and October 31, 2025, and the “Best Concept Car Category” focusing on concept cars exhibited at the Japan Mobility Show held in October 2025.

The judging process consists of a first round where design leaders from each automotive company select three vehicles from each category to determine the Three Best, followed by a final round where the aforementioned judges select the Best 1 from the Three Best.

Three Best

The results of the first round of judging are as follows (not ranked by score, so in no particular order):

Production Car Category

Crown Estate

Delica Mini

Lexus GX

Concept Car Category

Century

K-OPEN

Lexus LS Concept

Final Judging

Rather than using a point system, the judging will evaluate from various perspectives, with the judges ultimately selecting the Best 1 through discussion.

The basic evaluation perspectives are considered to be the following four points:

• Beauty of form (balance)
• Contemporary relevance
• Social message integrating technology and design
• Whether it is a “design that sells” or a “design that shows evolution”

For more specific guidance on these basic perspectives, the following eight items were established as reference points for consideration. However, these items are not mandatory for the judges but are intended as references to facilitate constructive discussion in the final judging and to help organize and clarify each judge’s perspective.

1. Design Philosophy/Concept

• What was the aim
• What vision of the future was presented
• Consistency between brand and design philosophy, etc.

2. Exterior Form/Proportion (Styling)

• Silhouette
• Proportion (architectural form)
• Novelty of proposal
• Surface composition
• Beauty of proportion
• Level of completion, etc.

3. Interior Form/Proportion (Styling)

• Unique styling
• Architectural form
• Packaging
• Proposal quality and completeness as interior space, etc.

4. Graphics, Color

• CMF
• HMI, etc.

5. Integration with Technology

• Proposal quality for packaging
• Safety/security considerations
• How technological constraints (EV/ICE/hydrogen, etc.) were transformed into beauty, etc.

6. Customer Experience Value/UX
7. Contemporary Relevance/Social Relevance

• Significance of launching at this time
• Whether it shows the future of mobility, etc.

8. Completeness/Persuasiveness

• Distance between concept and actual model
• Feasibility

Car Styling Design Grand Prize Announcement

The results of the final judging will be announced and awards presented for each Best 1 at the C&T Meeting* to be held on Saturday, January 17th.