Design Talk with César Muntada

César Muntada is the Head of Light Design at Audi. He talks about light and his passion for cars.

César Muntada, what is your back­ground? Why did you decide to specialize in lighting design? And why cars?

That was a coin­ci­dence. In the famous Stan­ford speech by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, he talks about the “dots”, the striking points in one’s own life that can only be mean­ing­fully connected with each other in retro­spect. So you have to have confi­dence along the way – in your­self and your deci­sions.

My grand­fa­ther had a company for illu­mi­nated adver­tising in Barcelona in the 60s. His studio was near Avin­guda Diag­onal, and at the very top of the building he had constructed an owl about nine meters high made of light bulbs as an adver­tise­ment for his company. The owl’s eyes could wink, the feathers moved and under­neath it was written “Magical Powers”. The owl was later exten­sively restored and still looks over the city day and night. I remember that many people were fasci­nated by it.

Later, the dots were linked to my job at Audi. Light plays an impor­tant role in my home town of Barcelona and then there is the family aspect in my family. Orig­i­nally, I studied car design, but it was pure coin­ci­dence that I was offered to do lighting design. I imme­di­ately said yes because it was clear to me how much you can create with light

When it comes to lighting design, the first thing people think of is lamps. Is it so different to design a pendant or a floor lamp for a home than head­lights for a car?

In prin­ciple, I would first say: No. When designing a car — as in all other adja­cent areas such as the inte­rior — there are always three steps in the best case. The reduc­tion and the ques­tion: What can be removed? So «less is more». Inte­gra­tion, «more from less», which raises the ques­tion of how to do more with less and connect things in an aesthet­i­cally and func­tion­ally appealing way. And in the third step, the ques­tion of how the new can be better than the solu­tion before it. So «less but better» — and that is the progress we need.

Never­the­less, a car is prob­ably the most complex «design piece» there is, so many elements from the most diverse areas have to work. Auto­mo­tive lighting design must meet the highest stan­dards of dura­bility, safety and quality. And we should not forget that a car is in motion, so that the way we use and perceive its lights is changing constantly.

But in the end, light — through which form it is trans­ported — is about the effect it has on people: Light is in motion and creates emotion anywhere, anytime.

What makes Audi head­lights so special?

During the day, lighting design comple­ments the design of the car, at night it is the design. Because the propor­tions and contours of the car are then no longer visible. That’s why the light design is so impor­tant to the brand Audi.

Tech­nology plays a major, even deci­sive role in vehicle lighting, and as Audi light designers we feel the need to under­stand any tech­nology in order to open new design possi­bil­i­ties. At Audi, we use design to make func­tion – i.e. our “Vorsprung durch Technik” – visible and tangible with design. Our vehicle light not only fulfils safety-rele­vant func­tions, but is also a differ­en­ti­ating factor for the Audi brand. More than 15 years ago, we started designing the daytime running lights, adding an aesthetic dimen­sion to the func­tion.

With us, not only do the indi­vidual models get their own char­acter through light, but the driver can also express them­selves very differ­ently depending on the mood and vehicle. With our Audi light, you can drive on Monday with a completely different inten­tion than on Tuesday and Wednesday, expressed by the selected light anima­tion that shows when opening or closing the car due to the change of light signa­tures in the front and rear.  Just as you can express the different aspects of your own person­ality or current mood with your choice of clothing or acces­sories. In some of our models we do that even by projecting different light anima­tions on the road or on the wall in front of the car when parking.

We hear more and more often that customers of other brands ask their dealers whether they can also order “Audi lights”, i.e. our daytime running lights. Our product has become synony­mous with design, quality and inno­va­tion.

Can you tell us more about the tech­no­log­ical inno­va­tions that you have devel­oped for the Audi Q6 e‑tron?

Digi­ti­za­tion allows us to write a whole new chapter here, because with the active digital light signa­ture we bring motion to a light signa­ture even while driving  —  a world premiere. We are designing not only the shape of the light but also its entire move­ment for the first time in a series-produc­tion vehicle. Through a specially devel­oped algo­rithm that gener­ates a new image every ten millisec­onds, the active digital light signa­ture conveys the live­li­ness and personal inter­ac­tion of the car by making the “brain activity” of the Q6 e‑tron visible through constant move­ment, anal­o­gous to humans. And there’s one more thing that brings Audi Lights closer to human behav­iour: The Q6 etron can warn other road user of possible dangers by changing the Light Signa­tures into a triangle warning signal – the start of a light language of commu­ni­ca­tion.

Thanks to this perfect symbiosis between lighting design and new tech­nology, the light in the new Audi Q6 e‑tron appears more lively and intel­li­gent than ever before. We have given the light signa­ture its own person­ality and at the same time given the digital world its own aesthetic. With the world premiere of the active digital light signa­ture, the Q6 e‑tron model series is ushering in a new era, char­ac­ter­ized by unique design and aesthetics that only Audi can offer.