Of course, aha: a vehicle lights perform the important and vital safety function of allowing drivers to see where they are going and everyone else to see when they are coming. But for decades, automotive designers have clocked headlights and taillights as an opportunity for creativity to build a distinctive brand that says: “Here it comes that car.” Think Lamborghini’s Y-shaped headlights, or the Dodge Challenger’s almost menacing double drum, or BMW’s halo rings.
But a new era of automotive light design, ushered in by new technologies, powertrains and even business models, is transforming the front profile of vehicles. “It’s been an incredible, critical acceleration over the last few years,” says Cesar Muntada, head of lighting design at Audi.
The result is lights that are brighter, thinner and in more complex configurations than ever before. Lights that dance when the car is approached by its owner, lights that flash when it is charging. Lights that can be customized according to personal taste or even mood. Lights that, even if regulators allow them, won’t dazzle other drivers. In the future, cars may even use lights to communicate with others on the road.
Today, automakers are doubling down on unique headlight signatures, arguing that the front of the car is the most important element not only in selling the car to customers, but also in the idea of the car – what it stands for.
“We call it the face,” says Tim Kozub, who leads Cadillac’s design team. “It goes back to us as people. The front of the car is the personality.” Cadillac’s internal market research shows that people respond first to the front of the car, then the rear and then the side view, he says. So car designers spend even more time—and money—to get the face just right.
Light it up
In a sense, the history of automobile headlight beautification is the history of advances in lighting technology. In the mid-20th century, headlights were small, halogen bulbs in a large eye. In the early 1990s, some car manufacturers began using xenon or high intensity discharge (HID) headlights, which were more powerful, efficient and lasted longer than halogen. At the turn of the century, automakers experimented with using different shapes and textures on the inside of headlights.
Finally: Enter the LED. Starting with the 2007 Lexus, automakers began using smaller, more powerful, and even longer-lasting lights in their headlights. Headlights no longer need to be light bulbs in a large housing, says Raphael Zammit, chair of the Transportation Design Program in the College of Creative Studies.
Creativity came from there. “We moved away from the physical aspect of the lamps and went towards a very slim, minimalist perspective,” says Zammit. “You look at lines, gestures of lines. The LEDs took it to the next level.”
