KIA wins President’s Design Award
December 22, 2008 by Matt Brogan
KIA have this year received the President’s Award for Design at the 10th annual Korea Design Awards in recognition of the company’s design-centred management strategy implemented in multiple stages since 2005.
The prestigious award was presented by the President of the Republic of Korea, Mr. Myung-bak Lee, and recognises KIA’s leadership in design.
Since the strategic appointment of Chief Design Officer Peter Schreyer in 2006, KIA has designed and produced a series of new and refreshed models, and concepts, focused around what Schreyer calls a “linear and minimalist” design language.
The backbone of this drive has been the creation and operation of a global design network which has included the opening of dedicated KIA design centres in North America and Germany.
“Our cross-company pursuit of design excellence since 2005 has finally come to fruition,” Euisun Chung, President of KIA Motors said, “We will use the Korea Design Award as a stepping stone to continue to infuse our creative design spirit throughout many aspects of KIA’s business, not just limiting our efforts to product design.”
The award also recognized the creative, above-the-line corporate advertising campaign introduced in the Korea market since 2007 as well as newly designed vehicles recently released locally, including the Mohave (known as Borrego in other markets), Lotze Innovation (Optima or Magentis), Forte (Cerato or Spectra) and Soul.
The Korea Design Awards are sponsored by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, and supported by the Korea Institute of Design Promotion. The annual awards are considered the definitive design awards in Korea.
Print it: 
*****PRIMO!*****
Bring back the Pregio!!
I miss you Bongo, come back soon
Cheers
F-0
I wish we still had the Pregio, i still get calls from old owners wanting to update. I drove the Soul in Korea (1.6ltr, Australia is getting the 2.0ltr) and it is very exciting. I am sure it will be the type of car that gets a cult following.
Forgive my memory, but didn’t the Pregio account for something like 28% of total sales for the brand? They seriously need to revisit bringing it back – perhaps we should start a petition.
I will be the first to question this award.
Design? Surely Magnetis and design awards cannot be put in the same article…. surely….. oh god…. there it is…
I do agree with you guys on the pregio though. I still see plenty of those things getting around so they were obviously very popular.
Wouldve been nice if they left it as the Kia Bongo. Although they should really save that name for a funky little hatch, would do well i think.
Hyundai, Kia’s parent company, seeing the sucsess of Pregio decided Hyundai should be the one to benifit from the van market. Politics.
Crouchy, in Korea, they already have the new model Magentis, and it looks much better than the current one we have here.
Have a google search for ‘Lotze Innovation’ and you should see why.
Kia already got a completely new shape for the magentis sedan in korea. They only call it a face lift but the changes made theought the car (mainly on the exterior) are very obvious and significant.. it wouldn t be too weird if Kia called it ‘All new magentis’. You ll find it hard to pick up any traces of the previous design at all…
Google ‘Lotze Innovation(Magentis)’ and have a look at some pics.. anyone would see why it had to be Kia to win the award this year
I think the new Kia Cerato Forte will do quite well too, even if people say it looks like the Honda Civic
http://www.autocritical.com/bl.....st-a-copy/