Simon Humphries is Chief Operating Officer and Director of Branding for Toyota Motor Corporation. Born in 1967 in the United Kingdom, he studied Industrial Design at Leicester Polytechnic University. He began his career as a product designer in 1988 before joining Toyota Motor Corporation in 1994. Initially, he worked in advanced design and in 2002 played a leading role in establishing and implementing the design philosophies of Toyota (Vibrant Clarity) and Lexus ( L-finesse).
After managing several projects in both advanced design and production, he was appointed President of ED2 (Toyota European Design Development), where his team spearheaded several projects to define Toyota’s transformation into a mobility company. In 2018 he was appointed head of global design, overseeing the Toyota and Lexus brands. In this role, he seeks to further define the Lexus brand as a pioneer, always pushing the boundaries through the creation of new and exciting luxury experiences.
On the occasion of the recent global launch of the new Lexus LBX, the head of Toyota and Lexus brand design reflects for the Magazine on the future challenges of automotive design and on the uniqueness of the Japanese identity. As a designer, he recognizes that in most cases what he does is follow his instinct, to do what comes from the “guts”.
Today, he says, “the way to reach a goal 10 or 20 years ago was to draw a straight line from A to B, but that’s over, now you have to jump, try to ‘guess’ the future and what’s to come. And for that there are two ways: one is through instinct and intuition. The other is by listening, learning and observing what is happening around you. You need to listen to people, what they like and what frustrates them, the markets, the news, capturing the energy of the moment, all of that gives you clues as to what can happen. There are no secrets, it’s about being open-minded… It’s the only way to do it in these times.”
Another challenge facing any creator is knowing when to stop. In this sense, Humprhies believes that “one of the most difficult things for a designer is knowing when to finish a design. Sometimes too much of something spoils it. That’s why it’s good to have an end point, a moment to stop, because if not, you would always continue… It is also essential -he says- to know how to renounce what you have done in the past. We have to work on the ability to reimagine and rethink something until we find a better way to do it”.
In relation to the real ability to be creative and free when designing a product or a strategy, the head of global design at Lexus points out that “a designer does not think it is appropriate to consider himself a creator of style; every designer –even one of automobiles– is an industrial designer first and his ultimate goal is not just to make something iconic or emotional, but also something beautiful, functional and easy to use.In reality, we as designers are problem solvers.A designer or engineer are contract employees to solve challenges. Sometimes it is better to have some limitation or constraint to stimulate the imagination. It is easier to adjust or adapt to certain limitations or impositions than to start from a completely blank sheet to focus on what is important”.