Designer Annika de Boer joins. “What makes our team so special?” She ponders for a moment – there seem to be many possible answers to this question. “Although we each have our own identity, we all speak the same design language,” she finally says.
“Yes, we actually have a common and very precise idea of what Audi is and how we can continue to innovate it in line with the brand’s identity,” Simona Falcinella adds.
The two ladies lead the way past showrooms, desks, high shelves, and what is known as the “material library” into the innermost part of the Color & Trim department, where two other team members are waiting: Tiziana Mauri and Christina Wittmann. All four bring their expertise to the material and color surface treatments of the Audi Q4 e-tron.
But where exactly does the creative journey begin on a major project like the Audi Q4 e-tron fit-out? “With a conceptual idea, an intuition based on broad trend research that encompasses design, technology, and society. Then we elaborate these ideas, filter them, and translate them into a pure and distinctive Audi code,” says head of the Color & Trim series projects Tiziana Mauri. “The entire team is involved in all phases of the project – from the first conceptual level to the final series development. We are all designers and material specialists at the same time. We zoom in and out, working on a micro and macro level.”