The UK’s prestigious Royal College of Art has awarded Kia Motors Chief Design Officer, Peter Schreyer, an Honorary Doctorate in recognition of his contribution to automotive design. The annual awards ceremony was held in the famous Royal Albert Hall, London, on Friday 29 June.
The RCA is the UK’s pre-eminent school of art and design and awards its honorary doctorates sparingly. Peter Schreyer is only the third automotive designer to be honoured and joins the Italian styling studio creators and legendary car designers, Sergio Pininfarina and Giorgetto Giugiaro on a list of honorands which reads like a ‘who’s who’ of art and design.
Schreyer, who was appointed to his newly created role at Kia in September 2006, is the man behind the stunning ex_cee’d cabrio concept car shown by Kia at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year. He is charged with driving the future design direction of Kia, one of the world’s fastest growing automobile manufacturers.
Peter Schreyer, 53, who was born in Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria, studied Industrial Design at the Fachhochschule in Munich. Winning a scholarship from Audi, he studied transportation design at the Royal College of Art in 1979/80. Returning to his native Germany, he joined Audi in 1980 and continued to work at Audi and Volkswagen for the next 25 years, producing designs for vehicles such as the Audi TT and the new VW Beetle. He left VW group to join Kia as Chief Design Officer in mid-2006.
“I am very proud and delighted to be honoured by the Royal College,” commented Schreyer. “It has a world-renowned tradition for encouraging the finest work and among its honorary doctors are some of the greatest names in the art and design world. To be included amongst them is possibly the greatest accolade I could wish for.
“This only serves to encourage me to produce the very best work of my career for Kia. Kia has given me the opportunity to shape its whole brand design and character, and seldom does a designer have such a clean sheet to work with. We have already started this journey with ex_cee’d to show just where we might go and at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September I think we will surprise the entire automotive world with what we are planning for Kia’s future,” he enthused.
