The work of Lotus Chief Designer Russell Carr, is being exhibited alongside other work from some of Coventry University’s top design graduates of the last ten years from Monday, 8 February to Friday 19 March at the University’s Lanchester Gallery.

The Coventry X-Sights exhibition is being staged to mark the tenth anniversary of the University being incorporated and leaving local authority control.

This is the first of two exhibitions marking the anniversary, and features the work of 11 graduates from the University’s Transport Design and Consumer Product Design degrees.

The earliest graduate exhibitor Russell Carr of Lotus graduated from Coventry in 1988 with a degree in Transport Design. He is now the Chief Designer at Lotus and designed one of the star cars of last year’s Motorshow - the Lotus 340R.

The most recent graduate exhibitor, from 1998, is Alister Whelan who graduated with a first class honours degree in Transport Design and is now a designer with Audi in Germany. He will be exhibiting his final year degree project which featured a design for a new Audi. He took this design along to his interview with Audi and it secured him a job as one of their designers.

Other exhibitors include Guy Burgoyne from the class of ‘92 now a designer for Volvo in Sweden and Chris Glasspool from the class of ‘95 and now a successful designer with Pape Woodwood Britain’s leading toy design consultancy.

Commenting on the exhibition Jenny Hann, Head of Industrial Design at Coventry University said:

"This exhibition is particularly rewarding for me as I started my academic career at Coventry University 10 years ago and know all of the exhibitors. Indeed, many were students of mine.

"Celebrating the success of our graduates seems a very fitting way to celebrate 10 years since incorporation with the main dilemma being the selection of exhibitors as we have so many graduates of whom we can be justifiably proud", added Jenny.

The full list of contributors is as follows:

1988 Russell Car - Chief Designer, Lotus.

1989 Gary Doy - Design Director of Design Q consultancy and co-designer of the latest Jensen - will be exhibiting his work on this design.

1990 Andy Wheel - Senior Designer, Geoff Mathews Design.

1991 Pierre Webster - Ford USA - will be exhibiting his interior designs from the Ford Ka.

1992 Guy Burgoyne - Designer, Volvo - Evolution and design of a car wheel.

1993 Sean Henstridge - Designer, Citroen Paris.

1994 Angela Duffy - Art, Design and Technology teacher - exhibiting her students work

1995 Chris Glasspool - Designer, Pape Woodwood - various toy designs

1996 Ajay Panchal - Designer with Nissan USA - exhibiting his work on the Arc for Nissan.

1997 Oliver Gilbertson - Designer with Adidas Germany - exhibiting sports shoe designs

1998 Alister Whelan - Designer with Audi Germany - Will exhibit his final year project of an Audi design which gained him the job.