Nissan's senior manager color and design strategy Francois Farion on the importance of objects in keeping focus [w/Video]

Nissan's Francois Farion, senior manager, color and design strategy, features in a new video giving an insight into how important objects are to designers when communicating, defining and maintaining their design intentions.

A lot of time and energy goes into designing a car and so, Farion says, it's vital that designers keep their focus throughout the process. He believes objects are the key to creating coherent designs.

"We work mostly on images but to work like this in 3D by gathering objects and putting them in boxes in a really meaningful way is really unique to Nissan," Farion says.

By using windmills for the Resonance, a shark's fin for the 370Z and, most bizarrely, a bulldog wearing sunglasses for the Cube, objects act as reference points to be designed around. 

Without an object in mind, he argues, it's likely you'll end up with something that looks uninspired, uninteresting and incoherent. 

Check out the video to the left to hear more.

By Rufus Thompson