Coatings

Driving Color Design

What colors will you see on the road in three to five years? That’s the vision the BASF design team offers automotive OEM customers through expertise in trend research and the design and creation of bold, unique colors.

People at a table looking at different colours

Color is a major and strategic factor that defines the first impression of a vehicle. It calls attention to its shape and the automaker’s brand image. A well-suited color on a car can be a make-or-break decision for a potential buyer. Designing a car color is challenging. It considers the complex interplay of hue, saturation, texture, surface, and metallic or pearlescent effects. BASF’s color designers continually monitor the trend indicators that determine the future look of vehicles and create appealing colors for a very demanding market. BASF’s world leadership in color keeps automotive designers on the cutting edge, delivering what their customers want, and staying ahead of the competition.

“As futurists we rethink the idea of the car as a product – driving colors for new technologies and new mobility concepts.”

Mark Gutjahr
Global Head of Automotive Color Design for BASF

“Lifestyles and mobility patterns are changing rapidly – young people are particularly looking for more and more color in their lives.”

Chiharu Matsuhara
Head of Automotive Color Design for Asia Pacific

AUVOTs - Virtual Color Visualization

Automotive paint is one of the most complex color themes. To gain a realistic impression of colors, effects and surfaces on a complete car during the early design phase, the designers of BASF’s Coatings division have developed virtual “AUVOT” (Automotive Vehicles of Trends) shapes. BASF’s AUVOTs display the interaction between color and geometry, and the importance of light in the digital world of automotive coatings. They help automotive manufacturers understand the impact of color in industrial design in one shape with two distinct sides.

Alle für Lackierungen relevanten Elemente zu visualisieren und abzubilden – wie den Farbton, die Effekte und die Oberfläche – ist bereits in der Realität eine Herausforderung und erfordert fundiertes Fachwissen. Dieses Wissen auf die virtuelle Welt zu übertragen und beide Welten miteinander zu verbinden, eröffnet einen neuen Arbeitsbereich. Unser Ziel bestand darin, ein technisch korrektes und vor allem realistisches Erscheinungsbild von Lacken und eine überzeugende Darstellung eines Farbtonkonzepts auf einem geeigneten Modell zu schaffen.

Florina Trost
Design EMEA

Four different AUVOT models represent the various car segments on the automotive market – from compact cars to SUVs.

AUVOT Lit

AUVOT Mea

AUVOT 2x2

AUVOT Sportif

World map showing our global design centers

Global Design Expertise

With a global team and design centers in Asia Pacific, EMEA and the Americas, BASF blends global presence, local expertise, a deep understanding of color trends and thoughtful analysis of the competitive market.

The customer is at the center of all that we do, and our design team works with nearly all Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) of vehicles around the world. We inspire automotive designers and support them with custom solutions including digital and virtual color tools to help them drive their global color development and coating application programs.

This brand of BASF is built on world leadership in state-of-the-art color and coatings technology.

Automotive Color Trends

The Color Report for Automotive OEM Coatings by BASF Coatings offers an in-depth exploration of color trends in the automotive industry, analyzing preferences on both global and regional levels.

Global Color Report