The design studios at the newly rejuvenated General Motors are busy on one mission: Making the company's new cars and trucks more distinctive than ever.

At stake is GM's very survival.

The company is leaner and more debt free thanks to the successful completion of its recent bankruptcy process -- which divided the company's assets into "good" and "bad" portions.

But with more interesting designs coming from import carmakers, a newly resurgent Ford bringing more pizazz to its models and Chrysler soon to be influenced by Italian design input from its partner Fiat, GM can't sit on its past design laurels.

GM's styling future rests largely in the hands of Ed Welburn, vice president of design, who has a vision for what GM vehicles will be like in the future.

Mr. Welburn, a graduate of Howard University, is a native of Philadelphia who spent much of his time as a child drawing cars. At age 11, he wrote to GM, told them he wanted to be a car designer when he grew up, and asked them how to get started -- and they responded with lots of information.

Mr. Welburn, 58, started working at GM in 1972 as an associate designer. In 2003, he became only the sixth styling chief in the 100 year history of General Motors. Now he leads more than 1,400 employees working in 11 design centers around the world.

Q: How has the bankruptcy and formation of the new GM affected the design process?

A: I would start by saying that the differences are occurring already. It's so important that these brands be well differentiated from each other and from every other brand in the marketplace. It's both a crowded and competitive market, and frankly, people are looking for distinction and to be noticed.

Q: So what is happening with each brand right now?

A: For one thing, what is happening with Cadillac is well known, and the successor of the CTS is a good example of what's to come. And what I call a real renaissance in Buick design is beginning. It started with the Enclave and now the all-new LaCrosse builds on that. It's a romantic, glowing, graceful brand. It's like an artists's brush stroke -- it goes from thick to thin, You don't see parallel lines anywhere at all on that car.

As for Chevy, it's really developing now, too. Camaro has done a lot to bring energy to the Chevrolet brand. Whatever car you will see from Chevrolet, it will have a lot of spirit, a lot of great value, and they will all look much more expensive than what they really are.

And for GMC, we know that it is a very well respected brand, and it's built around the idea of industrial precision. So you will see a strong, powerful, reassuring look in all of our future GMCs.

Q: What are the basic themes and theories around which you will orient all your future designs for each brand? What key words do the designers rally around when you're developing designs for each brand?

A: Cadillacs should all have dramatic presence. They should all be bold, edgy designs. For instance, the first generation CTS was a very strong statement, but the second generation professes that even further. But it still hasn't lost that bold character and edge in design. It's much more sophisticated looking.

All Cadillacs have vertical headlamps and taillamps, and the taillights are so distinctive that no other brand would dare copy them. It's a Cadillac signature.

Like Cadillac, Buick is a premium brand, but it's so totally different from Cadillac in form and vocabulary. Buick means very flowing lines, for instance. Cadillac means crisp and edgy with a somewhat aggressive attitude and forward thrust to its designs. Buick should be more graceful, flowing, romantic and musical in form and vocabulary.

Chevy in some ways should be far more straightforward, very linear, so that there's no excess in the design. Yet the designs for Chevy still should have a lot of energy. I don't care what our designers around the world are working on, when it comes to Chevrolet, they usually have a diecast Camaro around for inspiration. Chevy's vocabulary means lean, taut, sporty, energy, and not excessive at all.

Q: How important is consistency and follow-through in everything you do at GM in the future for your makes?

A: It's very important. Though we have multiple design centers, we must always work to be consistent from one design center to another. And that means not just consistent with vehicle design, but everything that gets into advertising, television commercials and anything else that is associated with the brand.

Q: Every car has heritage features -- design elements that translate into most of the cars coming from that brand. What are the ones that you will find most important when you're designing each of the brands?

A: When you look at the best of Cadillacs, whether it's the V-16s from the '30s or the dramatic designs for Cadillacs of the later 1950s or the early 1960s, they all have very bold, dramatic front ends, with a very strong egg crate grille textures with vertical and horizontal lines.

As for fins, although we no longer have them on Cadillac, but if you look closely at products like CTS and the SRX there's just a hint of fins on the end of those cars. It's just a hint -- very subtle but very, very influential to the designs of the cars in the future.

Buick design is very interesting. I'll be honest and say that it's had a checkered past. In the early 1950s, there were great cars like the 1953 Buick Skylark. It was an incredible design -- a great car with a very bold, strong grille, very flowing lines. And of course, Buicks had portholes (except for Skylark) back then.

After that, we went through periods where Buicks lost that design balance, as well as grace and elegance. It seemed to return in the early '60s with the Riviera Coupe and the Electra 225, all very flowing, very elegant and prestigious designs. After that period, they lost their way again, but I'm happy to say that there is now a renaissance going on in Buick design.

Q: I understand from others that Buick is the brand that the designers really enjoy working with.

A: Our designers absolutely love working on Buick designs. They completely understand the brand history and the believe that Buick's potential for the future is with very contemporary, not retro designs. They're very excited about it. And you know, I've almost never seen a bad Buick sketch around here. Every one of them is fantastic. And remember, we're talking here about young designers. They didn't even grow up with Buick design language.

Q: Let's talk about interiors. What's happening there?

A: Frankly, we were behind the rest of the industry for great interiors. We are now making an all-out effort to do interiors that are warm, inviting, with just the right materials on doors and seats.

With Buick interiors, the word again is flowing. Look at the flowing console of the 1963 Riviera. Today it seems formal, but if you compare it to consoles of every car in the industry at that time -- if they even had a console -- it was very rigid while the Riviera console had a lot of angle and flow. That inspired us for what we did on the new LaCrosse, and it will inspire us for future Buick interiors, too.

Cadillac interiors are influenced by what we call the "art and science" design language. They should be very, very contemporary, but not ice cold. They should be warm and inviting with just the right materials. What we use for influence with Cadillac interiors can be seen with the CTS, where we drew inspiration for the center of instrument panel from the Cadillac crest, for instance.

With Chevy, we are using what we call a dual cockpit pattern, like what you see on the current Malibu. But the inspiration comes from late 1950s and early 1960s Corvettes. This is a design element that we will be using on most of the other Chevy models.

Q: Anything new coming for the kinds of materials you will use for the interiors?

A: I just left a review where we were looking at some very experimental materials for our interiors -- a variety of cool things. Generally, they make the interior look a lot more expensive than it is. Some of these materials don't look like wood at all, but they still make the interiors look far more expensive.

Q: In what other ways has having only four brands rather than eight affected the design process at GM?

A: It allows us to work on more new products, and allows us to dedicate more people to the execution of the design, not just on themes, but on bringing it to the market, for instance. It is not just our goal but our mission that every new product we develop has to be a home run now. Each one has to be a great vehicle.