1. Frank Stephenson is a Moroccan-born Spanish-American automobile designer who has worked for Ford, BMW, Mini, Ferrari, Maserati, Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, and McLaren.
19 Facts About Frank Stephenson
1. 2.
Frank Stephenson is best known for redesigning the Mini as the Mini Hatch.
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Frank Stephenson was born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco to a Norwegian father and a Spanish mother on 3 October 1959.
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Frank 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 a Design Master at Suning Intelligent Technology, a major Chinese technology company.
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Frank Stephenson speaks English, Italian, German, and Spanish fluently and is an international speaker on many design-related and motivational subjects.
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Frank Stephenson has been listed in Debrett's People of Today since 2010.
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Frank Stephenson began at Ford's design studio in Cologne, Germany, where he was asked to submit designs for some distinctive features on the Ford Escort RS Cosworth.
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Frank Stephenson later moved to BMW where he spent 11 years, eventually leading to an appointment as Chief Designer.
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Also while at BMW, Frank Stephenson designed the first BMW SUV, the BMW X5.
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In July 2002, Frank Stephenson was appointed the first Director of Ferrari-Maserati Concept Design and Development in Maranello and Modena, Italy.
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Frank Stephenson was tasked with rebuilding the struggling Fiat brand, where he directed the styling of the Punto and Bravo and translated Roberto Giolito's 2004 Fiat Trepiuno concept into the production 500, Punto and Bravo.
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Frank Stephenson left McLaren Automotive in 2017 and was rumoured to make a return to the BMW Group to head the design team at Mini.
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From May 2018 to November 2019, Frank Stephenson was head of product design at the German aviation company Lilium and Design Master of Suning Smart Technology.
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Frank Stephenson continues to work on many different cross-industry design projects, products and design solutions.
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Frank Stephenson says that he looks everywhere for inspiration and is always sketching.
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Frank Stephenson adds that just walking down the street one can find inspiration from so many things.
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Frank Stephenson says that he looks to the animal kingdom for design, adopting what's termed biomimicry for his design inspiration.
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Frank Stephenson's stated goal is to "find the principles in nature that make organisms be successful in their environment".
19.
Frank Stephenson 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.