Франк Стивенсон: Автокөлік дизайнінің шебері

Automobile designer

Frank Stephenson (STEFFensən; born 3 October 1959) is a Moroccan born American automobile designer who has worked for Ford, BMW, Mini, Ferrari, Maserati, Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, and McLaren. Motor Trend magazine has called him "one of the most influential automotive designers of our time". Stephenson has created a YouTube channel under his name, his first video series being the "How I Designed " series in April 2020; as of March 2022, his channel has gained over 200,000 subscribers and over 12,000,000 views.

Stephenson was born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco to a Norwegian father and a Spanish mother on 3 October 1959. At the age of 11, his family moved to Istanbul, Turkey followed by two years in Madrid, Spain, where he graduated from high school. After high school, Stephenson spent six years competing professionally in motocross. His passion for drawing and automobiles since his youth led him to study automotive design at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California from 1982 to 1986. Stephenson has been the director of design for Mini, Ferrari, Maserati, Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, and McLaren before moving on to Lilium Aviation to lead the design team creating eVTOL taxi aircraft, as well as being Design Master at Suning Intelligent Technology, a major Chinese technology company. Additionally, he is the design director of Frank Stephenson Design, his independent UK based design studio that designs and collaborates with companies worldwide. Stephenson speaks English, Italian, German, and Spanish fluently and is an international speaker on many design related and motivational subjects. He has also been listed in Debrett's People of Today since 2010. In 2019, a film documentary about his work and career titled Chasing Perfect, produced by Lionsgate and Salon Pictures and directed by Helena Coan, was released globally.

Stephenson says that he looks everywhere for inspiration and is always sketching. He adds that just walking down the street one can find inspiration from so many things. Stephenson also says that he looks to the animal kingdom for design, adopting what's termed biomimicry for his design inspiration. Stephenson's design process progresses from a sketch pad to computer graphics, then clay models, and finally to prototype models. He says the advantage of working with clay models is that you can see and feel the designed surfaces in three dimensions, embedding the product with the human touch. He credits curiosity, research, and innovation as key drivers to his design values.