One to one with car wrap designer Dimitry Carbonov

As he lifts the shutters up on his workshop and rolls up his sleeves, ready to wrap some beauties, one of Dubai’s most talented and exciting car-wrapping designers, Ukrainian-born Dimitry Carbonov awaits his next supercar looking for an ultra-cool, ultra-exclusive makeover. Mikaniki went behind the scenes and caught up with the man himself.

It was all a dream…

It all began quite unexpectedly for me in 2001, with a dream and a car magazine to borrow from Biggie Smalls. I was drawing designs on the cars in the pictures, a pattern here, few lines there, nothing major, just exploring my curiosity.

3 years later, in 2004, I implemented my very first design on an actual car, and it was the first step in the thousand-mile journey.

I first came to Dubai as a tourist, like most people would at least once in their lifetime. But I liked it enough to visit again and in 2015, after my second visit, I decided it was the place for me. I love the buildings, the architecture, and of course, the many, many nice cars.

It was quite a slog. I first worked with car spare parts for 2 years before offering design services as a freelancer for a couple more years before setting up Carbonov Design.

Since then, I’ve managed to make a name for myself. I’ve designed for Shamma Hamdan, who’s a renowned Arabic singer, Supercar Blondie, Salomondrin, Rashed Belhasa to name a few. Another five to seven others with different levels of popularity on social media.

You ask me what my favourite car is? I’ve got three. The Lamborghini Aventador SV, the McLaren 765LT, and the Porsche 918. I love all three because of the way they’re designed, their body shapes, I could wrap these over and over again!

It’s all about you

Foiling is art. I’m not entirely sure about plain wraps, but it’s still refreshing and offers some paint protection on the whole. I’m more about the exclusive, the bespoke. It’s like a suit. You could get something off the rack from JC Penny, or you can go to a tailor and treat yourself to something really special. A statement piece. Something truly unique and one of a kind.

That’s what I do with cars. I’m giving you the opportunity to take your place among the very top and to stand out from the crowd.

My initial step is to hold a conversation with the customer. I put on my psychologist hat and try to get into his or her psyche, to understand the vision, the idea. Once I’ve nailed down his personality traits, the quirks, I combine it with the latest trends and present the result in the form of a beautiful car wrap design.

It takes a week to four months to nail the final concept. After that, it’s anywhere between 2 and 10 days to implement. Everyone’s different, and I always take an individualistic approach with each and every customer to find a bespoke, one of one design solution.

I always say that customers aren’t purchasing a design from me. You’re hiring me as an expert, to work with your personality and bring your vision to life.

Once I’m done with a project, I take away any key learnings from it and then put it to bed. I don’t really look back on any projects and wish that I could do them again. Instead, I look forward to creating new designs! Coming up with different ideas, finding a way to realise them. That’s what I get a kick out of.

I don’t have a favourite when it comes to designs. Each one is different and has its own charm, its own character. It’s like picking a favourite child! Having said that, I think I would be partial  to my own future supercar that I’ll wrap in a design that speaks to me personally 🙂

PlastiDip or foiling?

PlastiDip is growing in popularity, but it’s still very much a new concept. From a design point of view, there are pros and cons to using PlastiDip, but that’s a very long, very technical story for another day! Although, I do hope it will become more popular over time, definitely worth exploring further.

Never too late to dream

I had no idea about design concept when I started working with cars all those years ago, so I never kept any specific car in mind. But if I’m forced to think about it, I’d maybe say the McLaren P1. It’s so curvy, creating a design for it would be like bending air itself!

And that’s a wrap.

You can follow Dimitry on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook to keep up to date with his latest work.