THE Ariya not only reimagines what an electric vehicle could be but how people should feel when driving it. Everything from the zero-gravity seats to the horizontal, dual information displays were designed for comfort and ergonomics. But when it came to eliciting a sense of inner tranquility, it was colour designer Kyehyun Ahn’s job to find the perfect combination of colour and materials.

The designer came to Japan from Korea four years ago but had been studying the Zen influence on design long before she arrived. “While studying design in college, I moved away from shape and toward colour to see how it influences mood in an intuitive, almost subliminal way,” Ahn explains. “The Ariya was my first chance to explore taking a Zen approach to not only colour, but how it coordinated with interior materials.” This path was a natural progression as Ahn embraced Nissan’s newly established Japanese DNA (J-DNA) design language. She was enthusiastic to incorporate concepts such as Ma, Iki, Kabuku or Omotenashi into her own Ariya work.

This journey led Ahn to try some unique colour combinations that initially raised a few eyebrows within her team. “I tend to pick the main colour from a source image, like an initial render and then add the unexpected with a complementary colour to build an interesting story.” That’s how she paired the blue-gray leather of the Ariya with copper accents - colours considered polar opposites. She saw the copper as a “kick” to heighten the visual impact. “Some colleagues weren’t comfortable with the combination right away, but I was confident that it would bring something very unique and beautiful to the interior, so I pushed for it.”

Her tenacity paid off when friends and colleagues saw the finished product last summer at the global unveil. “It was unreal for me,” Ahn recalls. “Their enthusiasm and the feedback online continues to fill me with excitement and pride.”

Outsiders may appreciate the final result, but they likely don’t fully comprehend the amount of work that goes into colour selection. Ahn and the larger team not only studied a variety of colours and materials, but also how the cabin space looked in natural light. “We always check colour selections outside in the sun, even at different times of the day. A colour can significantly shift between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.” Ahn explains. That led to multiple rounds of refinements before final selections were made.