This is the problem when all of the Italian design houses have been removed from the process.
Okay, so Flavio Manzoni isn’t quite Pininifarina, but ringing in a team who design phones seems a little bit of an extreme reaction.
I think the focus of this dreadful… lets say mode of transportation… had all of its design budget spent on those side vents… to look like iPhones.
What a way to waste your heritage and culture.
That thing is ugly, the Alias team’s inhouse designs for the software look great by comparison with a presumably much smaller allocated budget.
I think its fair to say that at least most skilled designers are probably either retiring or are promoted to management position. IMHO, the biggest reason for the European economic downfall is the elimination and lack of honor for the technical work. I think outsourcing it, could also be seen as a desperate measure. So I would not assume, that inhouse development would be better. Its just more expensive. This is definitely something which works better in other countries
I think it’s also due to managers not understanding the long term consequences of brain drain. They think they are cutting costs, whereas they are in fact also reducing the output quality long term. What we are seeing now has been decades in the making.
Yes, I’m definitely against offshoring. I’m just saying its not that inhouse is currently working much better.
if those working in house had had the same education, guidance and working environment as their predecessors, that likely wouldn’t have been the case.
Fortunately, there are still people carrying forward Italian design, while others are designing smartphones disguised as cars.
In the case of Parkside this could possibly surprise only a very naive person, though (not saying you are).
And for these kind of products this is perfectly acceptable. Parkside mostly offer capable, “good enough” products for home users at an unbeatable quality/price ratio.
It gets much more difficult to digest when we learn about the reality of premium quality products that carry the badge “made in Germany” (or Italy, Japan. Sweden, UK whatever premium origin you like) being outsourced to sweatshop production in Asia.
Premium product prices at outsourced mass production costs = higher margins for corporation, less quality for the clients.
Everyone is following the path that the luxury industry has gone in the last decades.
As Bobby already mentioned. If you are a skilled modeller, it shouldn’t be a matter of time or extra costs. Its the experience which doesn’t let you do such things, and it can be as fast as a bad approach. It might only be the case that it wasn’t created in a manual modelling process, but using a parametric modeller instead. But usually, when you see such defects, its definitely a skill issue. And skill issues (not always of course) are an indicator for very cheap contract work.
That of course makes it still acceptable, but it shows erosion of quality. Something Germany was always known for.
You both wrote some quite valid arguments. I completely agree with that.
When it comes to the product design, avoiding/fixing ugly areas such like those created by automatic fillets or patches usually takes just a minute extra working time (especially with plug-ins like Xnurbs). Making a square surface instead of a 3-sided automatic fillet is not a difficult task for any CAD modeler, let alone someone who is part of the primary team of CAD modelers for a big and popular brand.
The main issue is that some CAD modelers have a bad habit for relying on the easiest and quickest solution rather than spending a little bit more time to doing it right.
I was mostly referring to the “outsourcing” part of your post and I completely agree with your last answer.
“Made in Germany” was meant as a warning.
Yeah, we all know the story.
What did it end up meaning though?
My mother still has a few old German consumer products made prior 1990. They have the best possible quality, functionality, precision, simple but effective design and components, with high-strength shiny plastics whose quality far exceeds everything manufactured today. German product design from the 80s was top notch.
Reminds me of the old Bulgarian consumer products that were also over-engineered to last at least 20 years of intensive usage (the law at the time mandated that any home appliance must work trouble-free for at least 20 years). The warranty was 20 years, not 2 years like the majority of today’s consumer products. The washing machine of my parents was in use for more than 30 years, and they had it before I was born.
The “Made in Germany” stamp up until 1990-1995 was a guarantee for having the best quality. The same goes for “Made in Japan” even today (for the most part).
I do my CAD work on a Japanese-made “Sony” TV since January 2017 (Sony KD-43XD8305, a model from 2016) and I can’t imagine how many working hours it ran so far. Probably more than 40 000 hours. According to the manual, its lifespan was supposed to be 30 000 hours.
In Italy, for a product to be labeled “Made in Italy”, it is often enough for it to be assembled there. So if the materials come from abroad, are processed in low-cost countries, and then assembled in an Italian factory where workers may still be underpaid, once the product leaves the factory it can be given the “Made in Italy” label.
For this reason, Made in Italy no longer necessarily represents the actual quality of the product. From a marketing perspective, however, companies still try to promote the idea that Made in Italy means a product entirely made in Italy using Italian craftsmanship and know-how. Nothing could be further from the truth: the reality of modern supply chains is far more complex and globalized.
This iron belonged to my mother. It’s over 30 years old, still works perfectly, and its surfaces are modeled better than the Ferrari Luce.
In Forza Horizon 6, I’m driving a car with a more appealing design than a Ferrari. By comparison, Ferrari’s current cars seem to have lost a bit of their charm. @Rhino_Bulgaria
Lidl Car 
My parents got a new Miele washing maschine and a new Miele Dryer a couple of month before I was born.
I remember when the service technician of the home appliance retailer told them he couldn’t change the sealing on the dryers door, because it would be difficult to get the spare part. He could get it, but maybe it was time to get a new dryer, because technology had moved on.
I was 45 years old.
The washing machine had been scrapped 3 years before that.
while some brands have had glow-ups in the past decade (kia, hyundai come to mind, strangely toyota is almost there), seems like ferrari had a glow-down…
