John Deere’s collaboration with BMW’s Designworks

Since the early days of John Deere, the company has focused on two core aspects - productivity, how the products perform in the field and aesthetics - how they look and make the customer feel. For more than 20 years, Deere have worked closely with Designworks, BMW’s innovation studio on industrial design establishing a great relationship that had led to many groundbreaking and futuristic finishes. Since the 1990s, Designworks worked with Deere prominently on designing Deere Construction equipment but in the ensuing years, the firm began working with Deere’s Agricultural and Turf division. Now, Designworks have worked closely on the new 8R tractors including the 8RX as well as the X9 combines of today. With the launch of these new products, Deere sought to do more than just showcase its most advanced combines and tractors ever, it wanted to make a powerful visual statement about the future of agricultural equipment and the John Deere brand. From the appearance of the new machines, they certainly managed to achieve this. The many years of collaboration have definitely paid off. This is even more evident with the 8R tractor already having won international design awards, including the prestigious Red Dot and iF awards. Going forward, the relationship between Deere’s Strategic Design Council and BMW Designworks will look to continue to work closely together - the relationship informing the design of many new Deere products from sprayers to Gator utility vehicles to motor graders. It will be exciting to see the next masterpieces as a result of this collaboration over the years to come.