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Culture > Art

Lexus creates art out of customers’ thank-you letters

From one angle, it looks like the LS; from another, it’s the brand logo

Thousands of origami pieces form the shape of the LS. PHOTO FROM LEXUS

It’s not common for car dealerships to receive compliments from customers. Most of the time, auto dealers are the recipients of complaints, demands, even threats. And if it isn’t usual for clients to say nice things about car vendors, it’s all the rarer for them to go out of their way to write thank-you letters to their vehicle brand just to let it know it’s doing a swell job.

Apparently, though, this is par for the course for Lexus in the US market. In fact, Toyota’s luxury division routinely gets a lot of these heartwarming messages that it decided to commission a perceptual artist by the name of Michael Murphy to create art out of these letters.

Making origami figures using letters sent by clients. PHOTO FROM LEXUS

Murphy proceeded to make origami pieces from the letters—more than 2,000 of them, apparently—and suspend them all from a ceiling. The art installation is fascinating mainly because it takes the shape of the 2018 Lexus LS sedan from one angle and then the Lexus logo from another.

Step back and you'll see that these suspended origami pieces form two different shapes. PHOTO FROM LEXUS

“Lexus crafts experiences for its guests with the same level of care it crafts its vehicles,” Lexus marketing vice president Cooper Ericksen is quoted by a press release as saying. “Using actual letters sent to our dealerships shows how each interaction, large or small, makes the overall Lexus experience exceptional. The Lexus Covenant is what drives dealers and associates to treat customers as they would treat guests in their own home and to go to any lengths to serve them better.”

First you see the Lexus LS. Now you see the Lexus logo. PHOTO FROM LEXUS

The art installation, which measures 8ft by 16ft and is suspended 13ft from the ground, reportedly took nearly 200 hours to complete. Imagine folding each letter into an origami piece. Simply called Letters, this is “very tight, precise craft,” shares Murphy. “If it is more than one millimeter off, it is considered an error.”

Sounds to us like the kind of meticulousness Lexus applies when taking care of its customers.

Thank you, Lexus...



Vernon B. Sarne

Vernon is the founder and editor-in-chief of VISOR. He has been an automotive journalist for 26 years. He became one by serendipity, walking into the office of a small publishing company and applying for a position he had no idea was for a local car magazine. God has watched over him throughout his humble journey. He writes the ‘Spoiler’ column.



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