目次
The journey began at Toyota.
I often read about Toyota Design in Car Styling magazine during my student days. The articles highlighted Toyota’s wide range of vehicle models and the many opportunities it seemed to offer for exploring new design directions, such as concept cars. That impression led me to set my sights on joining Toyota.
As I mentioned in Column #3, a senior from my university served as a strong role model, and I followed in his footsteps. In the spring of 1978, I joined Toyota’s seasonal training program, received a job offer that autumn, and officially began working as a full-time designer in April 1979.
However, I didn’t begin design work right away. Like the approximately 200 other university graduates who joined Toyota that year, I first underwent a six-month training program that included rotations at factories and dealerships. Only after completing this program was I officially assigned to the Design Division.
Even then, there was an additional four-month training period within the division itself, where our individual strengths and potential were assessed. It wasn’t until February 1980—ten months after joining the company—that I was finally placed in a department where I could begin actual design work.
I was assigned to one of several teams within the division responsible for exterior design, and my first project was working on the minor model change of the 70-series Corolla, which at the time was Toyota’s best-selling model. This was followed by involvement in the full model change of the 80-series Corolla.
At Toyota, models prior to the 70-series Corolla typically featured bumpers constructed separately from the rest of the front-end components. These consisted of a chromed or black-painted steel bar with urethane corner pieces attached.
The 80-series Corolla marked a turning point—it was the first model to adopt body-colored bumpers integrated into the overall vehicle form. This innovation triggered a broader industry shift, not only at Toyota but across many manufacturers, toward plastic bumpers and color-matching as standard. It was also around this time that headlamps began to be uniquely styled for each individual model.
Until the early 1970s, Japanese automakers largely looked to American cars as their design reference. However, since the overall length and width of Japanese vehicles were only about 80% of their American counterparts, it became increasingly clear that simply emulating the character lines and component shapes of U.S. cars made it difficult to achieve the same sense of visual elegance and proportion.
By the latter half of the 1970s, Japanese designers gradually began turning their attention to European cars, which were closer in size and proportion. Around that time, Italian carrozzeria such as Italdesign and Pininfarina were gaining prominence. Italdesign’s “Asso” series of concept cars—characterized by sharp lines and planar surfaces—stood out in particular, drawing considerable attention from automotive designers for their bold and innovative styling.
Bottom left: VW Golf Bottom right: VW Scirocco
It’s clear that the design of Toyota’s 70-series Corolla was influenced by this style. When it came time to begin designing the 80-series Corolla, one of the main discussions among Toyota’s designers was whether the trend of sharp lines and flat surfaces would continue, or if softer, more voluminous surfaces would come to be seen as fresh and modern.
Around that same time, Italdesign unveiled the Medusa concept car, which explored a new design language that combined linear character with rounded, flowing surfaces. This approach offered a valuable reference and inspiration for our design theme.
Experience in the Color design team
One year after my assignment, Department Head Mr. Yaegashi retired, and Mr. Nagisa took over the position. With the change in leadership, there was a major reshuffling within the division, and I was suddenly transferred to the color design department.
Color design is the division responsible for determining the colors of all visible components on both the exterior and interior of a vehicle. For the exterior, this mainly involves selecting the overall body paint color. For the interior, it includes determining the colors of plastic components like the instrument panel and steering wheel, as well as choosing seat fabrics and leather materials.
At the time, Toyota was moving forward with several innovations: the introduction of high-chroma exterior colors like “Super White” and “Super Red,” which used colorized undercoats to enhance vibrancy; and the mass production of mica paint, which replaced the aluminum flakes in conventional metallic paints with mica particles to create a more refined finish.
For the FF Corona model I worked on, we introduced a “Deep Red” exterior color, made possible by a newly developed pigment. It was the first time in a production vehicle that we achieved a deep, layered color effect that resembled the richness of a double-coated finish.
It was around this time that body-colored bumpers—painted resin bumpers matching the vehicle’s body color—began to replace traditional chrome-plated ones and became the industry standard. As a result, attractive body colors gained even greater importance in vehicle design. Before being assigned to this role, I knew nothing about this field, but once I started, I discovered just how deep and fascinating it truly was.
Study abroad at ACCD
Incidentally, one of the reasons I chose Toyota as my place of employment was because the company had a sponsored overseas study program. Back then, Car Styling magazine often featured articles about the ArtCenter College of Design (ACCD) in the U.S., and some of the student works from Toyota-sponsored scholars were showcased in those issues.
I didn’t have the personal funds to cover the cost of studying abroad in the U.S., so I thought that if I could join a company and study overseas at their expense, it would be the perfect win-win situation.
However, in 1978, Toyota established a design center in California called Calty. This development was also featured in Car Styling magazine at the time.
Just as I joined the company, Toyota decided that with the establishment of Calty, most of the necessary design information from the U.S. could be obtained there, and as a result, the sponsored study abroad program was discontinued.
But as the saying goes, “When one door closes, another opens.” Around that time, the ArtCenter College of Design (ACCD) awarded an honorary doctorate to the then-president of Toyota. In response, the president asked the head of the design division about ACCD—what kind of institution it was and what kind of relationship the company had with it in the past.
As a gesture of gratitude, the president made a donation of one million dollars to ACCD. He then suggested that, given this renewed connection, it would make sense to start sending design students there again. Encouraged by this, the design division decided to revive the overseas study program, and the process of selecting a candidate began.
However, most of the young designers around my age—including myself—were hesitant about studying in English. Fortunately for me, I had long dreamed of going abroad and had been studying English conversation in a modest but steady way since my student days. So when the opportunity to study in the U.S. arose, I didn’t hesitate to raise my hand.
What worked in my favor was that no other young designers volunteered—so I was selected. I went on to study for one year (three terms) starting in the summer of 1985 at ACCD’s Pasadena campus in California.
Though it was a relatively short time, it was a study abroad experience filled with new discoveries. ACCD is an art and design college, but it has a dedicated Transportation Design program that draws aspiring automotive designers from across the United States—and even from overseas.
There were several international students, including some from Japan, and I had the chance to study alongside them. I wasn’t enrolled at the same time as Kunihisa Ito, a senior designer whose work had appeared in Car Styling magazine, but I remember how much his sketches inspired me back then.
Later, I became personally acquainted with Mr. Ito, and he shared valuable advice on how to pursue a career abroad.
Studying at ACCD was my first experience learning alongside students from outside Japan. Among them was a classmate who later introduced me to Hyundai’s U.S. design studio—an important connection that began during this time.
There were many “firsts” for me at ACCD, but the most significant was the approach of moving your hand before overthinking a concept in your head: producing dozens of sketches a day, using them to explore ideas, and refining them through continued sketching. (During my one year at ACCD, I felt like I created more sketches than I had in four years at a Japanese art university.)
Another major first was building my own clay model based on my sketches. Translating a design into three dimensions revealed unexpected discoveries. Additionally, I experienced drawing a full-size rendering of a side view using tape and ink—a technique that had a powerful visual impact and offered a sense of realism similar to what we now achieve through VR.
Throughout this time, Car Styling magazine was an invaluable resource. I studied numerous sketches and renderings featured in its pages, and the magazine even showcased our student projects—complete with photos—which I remain deeply grateful for.
Here are works from the Drawing Classes
We learned a variety of expressive techniques using different materials.
Since we were taught by professionals in each field, we received precise and insightful feedback.
To be continued in Part 2…