Who picks car colors and materials? Designers like Hannah Custance

As automotive journalists, we're often asked "how did you get that job?" People usually didn't even know you could do such a thing. In this 7 Questions series, we're highlighting other jobs in the automotive industry that you might not have heard about before. What do they do, how'd they get to do it and other questions about their particular corner of the car world.

Slowly but surely, the automotive landscape is becoming more colorful. Look beyond the unrelentingly conservative palette of white, black and gray most buyers opt for and you'll see the increased use of exterior trim types beyond the usual chrome. There's gloss black, of course, but also other metallic finishes like gold or copper. Those can be found inside, too, where there's also an increase in colorful leathers and trims, innovative fabrics, new wood types and finishes, and greater creativity in general.

So where is this change coming from? The answer is designers like Hannah Custance, the color and materials design manager for Jaguar Land Rover. Her team's latest effort is also its magnum opus, the 2022 Range Rover. Although saddled with the expectations that comes with one of the automotive industry's classic nameplates, the all-new Range Rover is also a celebration of cutting edge manufacturing and fashion-forward materials selection.

We sat down with Hannah at the L.A. Auto Show to find out more about color and materials designers, how she ended up in the industry, and advice she might have for young designers out there. It has been condensed for brevity.

Autoblog: What does a color and materials design manager to do?

Hannah Custance: I basically look after a team of designers who design finishes for every A surface on the car. So, that could be exterior finishes. It could be interior trim materials, soft materials, hard materials, chromes, metals, woods, ceramic – that's one of the new ones – anything you can kind of touch and see is color material design.

Autoblog: How early in the design process does your team become involved.

Hannah: Right at the very start. In fact, we look at materials that don't have a product assigned to them or a car assigned to them. So, it takes actually a very long time for us to get materials approved and fully validated. We have to find suppliers that are willing to work in automotive and our test standards are incredibly high, some of the highest in the industry. So, we often have to have all the materials fully validated even before the shape of the seat or the shape of the car is even fully signed off.

Autoblog: What's something that most people don't know about the selection of colors and materials for a new car?

Hannah: Probably how much we scrutinize every single detail. And I cannot emphasize that enough. We literally look at every single thing and we make models for everything as well. So, when we paint color, for example, we look at it in every light. We look at it on every angle. We have to assess colors on small scale and then on big scale, cause cars are incredibly big as well, so how does that translate onto a larger surface?

We assess it then from a test standards perspective. So whilst we might have a creation target that we want to really hit, we have to then go through this iterative design process to make sure it passes our test standards.

I think the level of attention to detail is just … it's our life basically. And it's also about assessing those materials and how they come together in one kind of beautiful harmonious product.

2022 Range Rover SV Serenity interior

Autoblog: How did you end up being a color and materials designer?

Hannah: I studied fashion design and I started my career in product design, working for outdoor brands and doing backpacks and things like that. The company I worked for also owned Lacoste-licensed footwear and they were looking for color materials designers. I think in most industries, the product designer will still do the color iterations.

I'd always done a bit of color design within my kind of product. Even as a student I was told I had an eye for color and that was one of the things I really enjoyed. So I thought I'll give it a go. And then I just fell in love with color and materials design.

You know, it's such a holistic design approach. You have to understand how everything is made, how the materials function, how it's put together. So although we focus on A surface, it's also about understanding the B surface as well. That means (understanding what's) underneath, what makes up the substrates. What tools have you got, what's under a seat, what foams, what laminations. So we might not be controlling what those are, but you have to understand how these products are processed to fully understand what you can and can't do with the A surface.