Abstract: Rolls-Royce is the symbol of top luxury in the car brand, and has become synonymous with luxury and customization. It's not just about decades of branding, it's about performance, workmanship, materials, design and innovation at any cost. In this article, we take a look at how Rolls-Royce does top-level design from a CMF perspective. What are the characteristics and methods?
The ultimate depiction of texture patterns
As a top car brand, its surface texture and pattern design never disappoint. Behind this is inseparable from the precision of craftsmanship and creative design, such as punching, embroidery, laser engraving and so on.
Even the simplest holes can be arranged to create a beautiful and elegant texture. This incorporates pattern arrangement, hole size gradient effect, etc.
For example, the following is the Rolls-Royce Cullinan Series II. The pattern design of the seat and door panel is realized by positioning the perforated leather process, which is very beautiful. Micro-holes of varying sizes, 0.8 mm or 1.2 mm in diameter, are arranged and combined to create different patterns, inspired by the ever-changing layers of clouds. It is understood that the number of holes is as high as 107,000.
There is also a microstructure optical texture effect created by laser engraving on the back of the glass. This kind of panel is mostly used in the dashboard position, and has applications in interiors such as the Shining and Cullinan.
Why Rolls-Royce does innovative design regardless of the cost, just look at the two technical solutions introduced below: hand embroidery and real wood inlay.
Hand embroidery
It is an indispensable element of Rolls-Royce design surface texture and pattern, highlighting high-end, artistic and ultimate luxury. This is an art of "painting with lines", which greatly enhances the compulsion of the interior. Naturally, the cost behind this is also very high.
The embroidery on the Rolls-Royce Phantom Scintilla Collector's Edition is a rare in the world, with a total of 869,500 knits! The interior of the vehicle is covered with a large number of 3D embroidery patterns in various places, including fabric seats, door inner panels, etc. The embroidery process is tatami mat stitching, which is known for its unique texture and compactness. This embroidery process is divided into six layers, each of which uses a different knit.
At the same time, the embroidery pattern on the inner panel of the door is combined with the luminous perforation technique, which gives a charming shine at night, as if emanating from the inside.
Figure Door embroidery pattern with luminous perforations
The Phantom Rose Blossom Collector's Edition features a more distinctive theme of interior embroidery motifs. The unique Phantom Rose is displayed in the "Art Collection" gallery and door trim in the car.
Real wood inlays are more complex. The pattern texture is made up of 1,603 individually hand-formed pieces of black wood, the highly complex pattern is set against the backdrop of 1,070 perfectly symmetrical design elements, and 533 asymmetrically arranged red wood pieces depict falling rose petals. Rolls-Royce sources black plane wood from France and then cuts, polishes and assembles each triangle by hand. These seemingly dyed light and dark grey chips are actually presented in their original hues, with layered colour differences created through the use of multiple pieces of wood with different "textures" (patterns on the surface of the naturally formed wood patches). The surface of the wood is covered with a special lacquer that protects it from fading over time.
The BLACK BADGE Exclusive Collector's Edition features an intricate design of more than 320 multi-directional laser-cut inlays lined with open-pore black wood to reveal the irregularly cracked surface of the Bonneville Salt Flats. This striking design extends all the way to the "waterfall" panel in the center of the rear seats.
It can be seen that the design of the texture, in the Rolls-Royce model, has thousands of changes, from the material process to the splicing combination, are inseparable from the word "top", and at the same time has a strong exclusive Rolls-Royce personalized elements, which is very recognizable.
In fact, the tonality and positioning of the brand determine the materials and processes to be used in a car. Just like Rolls-Royce, product design should not be limited to a certain field, but should dare to innovate and dare to integrate across borders, which often brings a new texture.
But to really do this, we often need to get the full version of the design process and inspiration from the "automotive" industry, which currently has the most complete CMF theory and the most complete industry, and further backward compatibility. It can be said that by mastering the automotive CMF design process and core material process, you can master a comprehensive, complete and immediately usable CMF design method.
The materials are extremely luxurious, high-end and innovative
Naturally, luxury cars never skimp on cost. In Rolls-Royce models, high-end materials such as wood, leather, and silk fabrics can be seen everywhere covered in a large area, staggered and wrapped with each other, reflecting each other, just like a multi-part of the material, which interprets the top luxury very well.
Figure: Real wood, fabric, leather and other piles are superimposed, full of luxury
Like the following super-large area covered real wood interior, only Rolls-Royce can afford to use ~~ The unique staggered wood grain texture covers many positions such as the center console, door inner panels, instrument panels, etc., and also includes a large area of continuous and complete wood trim around the interior, which seamlessly connects with the door trim, which is really the ultimate luxury.
It is understood that this kind of curved shape, delicate texture of wood veneer processing is more difficult. The rear deck contains 76 pieces of wood that took 8,000 hours to build the wooden interior alone, using 233 wooden pieces, which are perforated and laid at a perfect 55° angle.
The car below is even more exaggerated, with plenty of walnut wood trim all over the body, even extending to the exterior.
The special silk fabric wraps the entire rear seat to achieve a light and shadow effect similar to that reflected off the water surface, which is very unique and innovative.
Not only that, but there are also many applications of high-end materials such as ceramic finishes, stainless steel, carbon fiber, and crystal.
Figure Celebratory goddess with ceramic finish
Figure: Gallery of "Celebratory Goddess" timepieces made of stainless steel
Pictured: There are 202 stainless steel blocks that are hand-polished and covered with "True Love" paint at the lower air intakes
Figure: Extra-wide front grille design with stainless steel polishing
There are also some exotic materials, such as pearl shell materials, which are used in parts such as dashboards and controllers. In addition, innovative materials are also used a lot, and most of them are based on the core concept of environmental protection to make innovative breakthroughs. For example, new plant fibers, environmentally friendly materials, etc.
Figure: A large number of pearl-encrusted panels
Characteristic design of the starry sky surface
The starry sky surface design was pioneered and sublimated by Rolls-Royce. Not only at the top of the interior, but also in many places such as the inner door panels, all of which can be designed to achieve a starry sky effect.
Among them, one of the more classic cars that uses the starry sky to the extreme is the Shining. The glowing starry sky effect extends from the roof to the doors and trims, giving you an immersive experience of being in the starry sky.
Rolls-Royce's starry sky panels are made of optical fiber materials and are handmade, which is very complex. To put it simply, it is to combine the optical fibers with the perforation process to create thousands of small holes, and put thousands of optical fibers in the holes, pass through the panel, and the optical cable connection illuminates them to make them have a flashing effect.
If you want to customize a personalized pattern, you need a unique template, and the time will increase exponentially. Generally speaking, the starry sky roof is pressed by three layers of fiberglass, foam and roof material (leather, etc.), and the optical fibers are penetrated by pinholes. The intensity of the starlight can be controlled by the length of the fiber and the notches on it, which can change the intensity of the starlight.
Here are a few distinctive starry sky tops
The Rolls-Royce Phantom Syntopia Collector's Edition "Woven Water" Starlight Canopy took nearly 300 hours to weave 162 pieces of glass organza on the starlight canopy. Of the 995 dazzling "stars", 187 are positioned by hand around this art treasure, illuminating from back to front, in a sequential manner. The starlight canopy alone took more than 700 hours.
The BLACK BADGE "Eclipse Crown" Exclusive Collector's Edition, a haute couture starlight canopy with a unique dynamic effect that vividly reproduces the moment of a total solar eclipse: a ring of 940 "stars" represents the bright coronal halo around the silhouette of the moon shadow during the eclipse, and is surrounded by 192 bright "stars".
Although the current star roof has been popularized in mid-to-high-end models, when it comes to the star roof, people will still be the first to think of Rolls-Royce, after all, the design of the Rolls-Royce star roof is indeed amazing enough.
Exclusive custom colors
As a top-of-the-line luxury car, there are many exclusive or custom paint colors. Many car paint coatings will add some additives such as mica sheets, pearlescent powder, glass beads, etc., to achieve a slight gradient or phantom color, and improve the gloss and other effects.
Here are a few of the more distinctive:
Truffle Stone:
Inspired by light brown marble with truffle-like textures, the Bespoke "Crystal Finish" process, in which glass particles are added to the varnish, improves the surface gloss of the lacquer layer. The overall look is beautiful and simple, luxurious and calm.
True Love Red:
The colors that change with the viewpoint like a baccarat black rose are reproduced. This slightly graded color change is due to its lacquer finish. Consisting of one layer of primer and five layers of varnish mixed with different shades of red, it takes more than 150 attempts to fine-tune the black coating to achieve the desired result.
流体黑(Liquid Noir)车漆:
Radiant in sunlight, the base colors are purple, blue, fuchsia and gold when viewed from different angles. To achieve this effect, Rolls-Royce has applied a coating containing a mirror pigment to the deepest black lacquer surface, which has a colour-shifting property. In order to achieve a sparkling effect, a new technology has been developed for the use of pigments in clear coatings. The process took more than 3,000 hours of testing and validation and months to build.
As for the combination and matching of colors, it is mainly based on two-color, monochrome full coverage, and embellishment colors.
Figure: Blue and white two-color + embellished color waistline design
Elevate your luxury with artwork and petty bourgeois items
In Rolls-Royce luxury cars, we often see some very fine and expensive petty bourgeois items, such as clocks, champagne and so on. Complemented by a refined and diverse range of craftsmanship and high-quality materials, these objects undoubtedly enhance the style of the interior and highlight the artistic sense. The following interprets several classic cases from the perspective of material technology.
Petty bourgeois items enhance the sense of luxury
For example, the center console of Rolls-Royce's new Arcadia is equipped with a timepiece that takes luxury to the extreme. Set in a wooden veneer, it has 119 facets and 12 0.1 mm thick hour marker beads. This geometric guilloché texture pattern is said to have been created by hand for 2 years, and it includes a variety of high-end watch manufacturing processes, such as abandoning anodizing, adopting more stable ceramic coating technology, micro-coating laser etching process, precision polishing of fine parts, wire drawing and other processes;
Exquisite in-car cutlery and barware.
The 2024 Rolls-Royce Chaser features rose petal inlays on its exclusive champagne cabinet, while the tray is made of open-pore black sycamore wood with a mirrored texture, while the brushed and laser-cut stainless steel inlay panel is engraved with the Château's motif in the centre. The cooler is made of black anodized aluminium and carbon fibre.
Add layers of art to the interior design
In order to reflect the smooth movement and flow of energy, the Phantom Scintilla Collector's Edition also adds a custom artwork to the place of the instrument panel: the Pulse of the Stars, which runs through the entire passenger and center front fascia area. Seven "ribbons", all individually milled from solid aluminum, give them a delicate surface texture. Combine the elements of light (reflection, etc.) to form a visual effect of ambilight, light and shadow transformation.
The Phantom Syntopia Collector's Edition Art Gallery, owners have the option to change the patterns in the gallery to reflect their personality and aesthetic.
The BLACK BADGE "Black Arrow" Exclusive Collector's Edition, the instrument panel is designed with an artistic treasure that subtly outlines the contemporary V12 engine of the Phantom with a complex design at your fingertips. The design and development process of this panel took two months and was engraved on a black coated aluminium sheet with a subtle metallic sheen underneath.
The blessing of intelligence and technology
The luminous effect is the most intuitive element that reflects the sense of design technology. For Rolls-Royce, the sense of science and technology of the light element has never been lacking. The most classic is the design of the starry sky roof and starry sky trim introduced above. In addition, other elements of smart technology, such as luminous grilles, ambient lights, electrochromic glass, etc., are naturally available. I won't go into too much detail.
Handmade elements
As mentioned earlier, handmade is a signature element of Rolls-Royce craftsmanship and is the embodiment of the ultimate luxury. Including the hand-made roof of the starry sky and the starry sky veneer, delicate embroidery, intricate parquet art, hand-dyeing of wood veneer, etc. Of course, this is also a direct manifestation of Rolls-Royce's design innovation at any cost.
brief summary
It can be seen that whether it is from the perspective of material technology, culture and art, or luxury and technology, the works brought to us by Rolls-Royce are very amazing and shocking, bringing users the ultimate experience of multi-dimensional senses. Most works of art come from innovation and design at any cost, as is the case with Rolls-Royce. Top materials, perfect combination, delicate craftsmanship, advanced customization, exquisite details, intelligent sense of technology, diversified artistic style implantation, etc., this kind of almost "paranoid" details have created the ultimate luxury and leading brand status of Rolls-Royce. It is no exaggeration to say that Rolls-Royce is not only a car, but also the pursuit of luxury and art, and a symbol of customization and high-end luxury.
Figure: The details of the shape, the nautical-inspired elements behind the design of the "sail-shaped cape".
Source: CMF Design Corps