Kia Soul Concept Design:
Soul City Mash Up

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Soul City Mash Up is a visually simple, but technology-enhanced concept vehicle that adapts to driver’s different needs in the complex, ever-changing urban environment.

Smart Design was asked by Antenna Magazine to give our take on the new Kia Soul for a special feature. The design team was pulled from all three of Smart’s offices, and their first idea was to celebrate the diverse cultures from their respective cities: New York, San Francisco, and Barcelona. As a source of inspiration, the designers looked at what makes these cities great—both in terms of differences and similarities. They wanted to reflect the ’soul’ of each city by allowing flexibility, customization, and expression for their unique culture, vibe, and lifestyle.

By using digital LCDs and multicolored LEDs for the exterior, drivers can express themselves through a set of color schemes that reflect the city, mood, or even an event they are attending. The interior was designed to encourage social interaction via physical form and custom technology applications. Each Kia Soul user creates his or her own profile that adjusts the settings of the vehicle to their personal driving style. From both the driver and passenger’s favorite music, to location-based apps and communication tools, cloud computing plays an important role in the car.

Details include:

• Heads-Up Display (HUD): The HUD provides an augmented reality experience, mapping contextually relevant information directly into the driver’s view (such as the Parking Finder application shown in the image above.)
• Exterior: The future-inspired exterior resembles automotive concept cars and has customizable light effects like the retro illuminated Kia logo.
• LED: An array of glass integrated LEDs in the lower part of the side and rear windows allow an extreme degree of customization, with the possibility of using application-based themes or even display messages and animations. 
• Interior: The principles of simplicity, cleanliness, and light customization have been applied to the interior design.
• Solar Cells: Screen-printed solar cells on the roof harvest energy from the sun to power secondary car systems.
• Soul ID: This card is your access point to the Soul community, including your personal or shared car and all enabled services.

The full story on this design was published online at Antenna Magazine.