SABIC & RCA reveals winners of VISIcON Automotive contest

The students worked on both an individual and team level. VISIcON’s individual grand prize was awarded to Daniel Quinlan (Ireland) with Franklin Brown (United States) and Stephen Russell (United Kingdom) as close runners-up. Pierre Andlauer and Henri Peugeot (France), Selim Benhabib (Turkey) and Cherica Haye (United Kingdom) earned top honours for the best team design.

Haye, a second year Textiles Design student, was also chosen as the grand award winner in the materials research category. The VISIcON project served as a unique, career preparatory experience for the RCA’s participating students and helped highlight not only on the importance of materials identification and selection in the earliest stages of the design process, but also the high potential of high-performance plastic materials to take automotive design in new directions.

“We congratulate the winning student designers and all of the participants for fully embracing the challenge behind VISIcON,” said Scott Fallon, general manager, automotive, with SABIC’s Innovative Plastics business. “It’s clear to us that the students took full advantage of the design freedom that our thermoplastic solutions offer.

"Their concepts wowed us and provided a glimpse into the future of automotive lighting and vehicle design, from bold new styling possibilities to expanded functionality. We look forward to building off the inspiration from VISIcON and helping our customers to apply the latest technology and enhance lighting on their vehicles.”

The students’ work was presented to a jury made up of distinguished automotive designers, SABIC and RCA representatives and other external experts.

“All of the concepts and models that we saw at VISIcON demonstrated feats of imagination, collaboration and innovation,” said Richard Woolley, Land Rover’s Advanced Design Studio Director and one of VISIcON’s jury members. “This was a fantastic project for these young designers. I was impressed by the students’ creativity and thoroughly enjoyed seeing their visions of how plastics can bring about positive change to car lighting and mobility in the future.”

The VISIcON project allowed for a free movement of ideas and thinking across design disciplines (Vehicle Design, Textiles and Industrial Design) and included the Vehicle Design department’s three automotive studios – Automark (brand identity), Urban Flow (exterior design) and Inside Out (interior design).