Bachelor  in Transportation Design – Bike Design – a.y. 2009/10

IED lives the Ducati passion

The proposals made by the bike designers of the Istituto Europeo di Design of Turin for the major Italian brand

An investigation of style which becomes an opportunity:  this is the premise of the thesis project carried out in collaboration with Ducati as part of the Three year post-diploma course in Transportation Design – BYT (Bike, Yacht and Train Design) a.y. 2009/2010.

In order to investigate the dynamics of the youth market and the motorbikes of tomorrow, Ducati is engaging in an analysis to single out a new client segments. The students of the Istituto Europeo di Design of Turin have thus found themselves playing the role of ‘potential clients’ in order to inform the company how the motorbike product and Ducati itself are perceived outside the context of the company, and how the motorbike market might change as a result of these new trends and the glamour element of the two wheel vehicle segment.

For the students this also represented an opportunity to experience the height of the Ducati passion by applying the knowledge and know-how acquired during their three year training to become professional designers.

The projects realized by the students stemmed from an in-depth investigation of the main style elements of motorbikes, from their first inception right through to the modern day.  The young designers were called upon to identify the recognisable elements of the Ducati of tomorrow, and apply this acquired knowledge to the design of an entry level motorbike for this new range.

The students worked under the supervision of Luigi Giampaolo, Co-coordinator of the Three Year post-diploma course in Transportation Design and of Andrea Ferraresi, Head of the Ducati Style Centre.  As a first assignment step, the ten designers individually developed their own concept ideas and produced sketches to illustrate them. Out of these ten proposals, five were then singled out and the students then worked on these in teams of two, in order to come up with a 1:4 scale model.

Of the five seleected projects, Ducati has chosen the one that offers the best mix of recognisable brand traits specific to the Bologna manufacturer along with most creative and innovative insight: TWINS by Simone Buonpensiere and Daniele Mazzon, has been produced in a full scale model.

Twins is a supermotard category bike capable of satisfying the requirements of a broad range of clientele. The project was developed with the aim of creating two motorbikes with different characteristics yet based on the same original layout. The first version, of which the full scale model has been created, was designed to satisfy a more glamourous audience thanks to the customisable saddle with a variety of different technical fabrics, colours and graphics; the second was instead designed to attract a more sporting and dynamic clientele seeking a more extreme and fun-to-ride bike.

A virtual presentation was instead organised for all the other concepts produced by the students. In order to produce the project, the students were asked to choose one of the existing Ducati mechanical lay-outs as their starting point.

Twins was conceived by: Simone Buonpensere and Daniele Mazzon, students of the Bachelor in Transportation design at IED Turin a.y. 2009/10.
Other contributions to the project: Luigi Giampaolo, Co-coordinator of the Three year post-diploma course in Transportation Design – BYT (Bike, Yacht and Train Design); Fulvio Fantolino, Coordinator of the Three year post-diploma Transportation Design course; Luca Borgogno, Consultant Professor, Senior Designer for Pininfarina; Andrea Ferraresi, Head of the Ducati Style Centre.

Special thanks: Cecomp