With the “Kodo – Soul of Motion” design language, Head Designer Ikuo Maeda set a bold new direction for design at Mazda. Launched ten years ago at the 2010 LA Motor Show with the concept car Shinari, it has been defining and elevating Mazda design ever since. One decade and a stage of evolvement later, Kodo Design is as popular as ever, with cars designed using its approach continuing to win awards, including the World Design Car of the Year for the Mazda3 in 2020.
Since its inception ten years ago, Kodo Design has been at the heart of a number of Mazda cars – from a new interpretation of the iconic Mazda MX-5 roadster to Mazda’s first battery electric vehicle, the MX-30¹. Yet the essential idea behind Kodo Design has remained unchanged: to explore the powerful and irresistible beauty of natural movement in a still object.
The word Kodo literally translates as “heartbeat”, but with the added meaning of filling something with life; of giving it a soul. This idea is central to the way Mazda has always thought about design: “In Japan, we feel that craftsmen inject life into what they make. We believe that a form sincerely and painstakingly made by human hands gets a soul,” Ikuo Maeda explains. Thus, “Soul of Motion” takes on a double meaning, expressing both the essence of motion and the “soul” imbued in the car by Mazda’s master craftsmen.
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