Maximilian Missoni has been head of design for Polestar Cars since 2018. After joining Volvo Cars 2012 and subsequently being promoted to VP of exterior design in 2014, it was a natural progression for Missoni to become Polestar’s design director following Thomas Ingenlath’s appointment as CEO of the premium electric vehicle brand.
In this candid FORCMAST interview, Missoni speaks with Eric Gallina about his career path — from the early days of discovering design, his time as a student at the RCA and his first job at Volkswagen — as well as his time at Volvo and Polestar’s design ethos and its future design direction. He also provides some guidance to designers navigating through this changing automotive landscape
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SHOW NOTES
00:00 – Intro
01:00 – Max Background and Starting Out
10:00 – RCA Projects
12:40 – Working at Volkswagen
16:00 – Frustration and Resilience
20:00 – Joining Volvo
26:45 – Starting Polestar
33:00 – What Makes Polestar Different
38:40 – The Role of the Designer
42:00 – Polestar Design Competition
50:00 – Why the Competition?
54:00 – Breaking into Design
01:00:00 – Future of Design (Changing Business Model)
01:10:00 – Personal Hobbies
01:15:00 – Electric Emotions
01:25:00 – Management Style
01:30:00 – Advice to Designers
We hope you enjoy listening to this genuine and informative conversation with Nax Missoni. As always, you can find the FORMCAST podcast on all the major streaming services below and many more. And if you’d like to help support the podcast please either subscribe to Form Trends (there are many perks to doing so) or donate to our Patreon account using the link below. Thank you for your support!
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