An Elevated Atmosphere
As people spend more time in their vehicles, ambient lighting has evolved beyond functionality to become a powerful tool for personalization, emotional connection, and comfort. Cadillac was the lead program to embody that idea.
Every Ignition is an Opportunity to Set the Tone
Ambient lighting creates an emotional connection to the space. By combining personalization with purposeful design, color transforms the cabin into a functional and expressive space.
Thoughtful Design Creates Timelessness
The curated color experience complements Cadillac’s design and remains relevant throughout its lifetime. The lighting becomes and extension of the vehicle’s identity; luxurious, refined and enduring.
Implementation
As the Cadillac’s ambient lighting program transitioned in-house, I became the lead designer of the ‘22-’24 implementation. This required collaboration and building trust with existing UX and cross-functional teams. Along the way, I ensured our displays accurately reflected the in-vehicle lighting system by re-calibrating our library of 126 on-screen colors to match the physical lighting. Thus, creating a more consistent and reliable experience between the UI and the vehicle.
Following the refinement of the Cadillac experience, a new challenge emerged:
How can we deliver the ambient lighting program to other brands?
Scalability
We shifted our approach from high-fidelity interior renders and centered the experience on the color selection itself. By removing vehicle-specific renders, we developed a simplified, adaptable interface that could be implemented across a wide range of platforms.
This design system established a unified ambient lighting experience that was flexible enough to support multiple vehicle programs while preserving a cohesive, recognizable interaction across the entire portfolio.