Driving her destiny: Sakina Yusuf’s passion for cars

Sakina Yusuf is a UK-based product designer with ambitions to break into the world of automotive design. Her work and content explore the intersection of design, car culture, motorsports, and the thrill of high-adrenaline experiences. Originally from Kuwait, she moved to the UK to pursue a BA (Hons) in Product Design at Manchester Metropolitan University. In this interview, Sakina shares how she turned doubt into drive and followed her instincts to make her ‘auto’ vision come to the fore.

What’s passion without a little obsession?

This question drove Sakina Yusuf’s latest design project, ‘an automobile of the future’ which blends cutting-edge automotive design with culture. 

Growing up in Kuwait, she often heard the revving and roaring of luxury cars, but never imagined designing one herself—until she visited a Formula 1 exhibition in 2024.

“It felt like stepping into a dream. Seeing motorsport’s journey from its birth to future innovations, the stories of legends like Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, and engineers like Rory Byrne and Pat Fry — it struck a chord within me.

“Walking around those iconic cars, touching the artifacts of racers, engineers, and inventors, I realised how every design choice and aerodynamic decision paves the story a driver and car tell together on the track. It made me realise that I didn’t want to be a spectator anymore — I wanted to be the reason behind the adrenaline rush.”

Determined, Sakina began researching but was taken aback by the skepticism she encountered at every turn. “I started digging—researching careers, reaching out on LinkedIn—and almost everyone gave me the same answer: ‘Sakina, you cannot do it. It is beyond you.’”

Instead of discouraging her, the skepticism fuelled her. Deep down, she knew she had to prove herself.

A nod of encouragement from Dr Callum Nash, her lecturer in product design, gave her the reassurance she was seeking.

“You can do it.”

Those four words felt “like a light in a dark tunnel,” she said.

But then came the hard part. Until December last year, she had not contemplated automotive design as the subject of her final year research project.

“In order to design a car, I had to learn three years of automotive design in just six months to even attempt the project,” she said.

A race to upskill

Since 2017, Sakina’s Instagram feed has been an assortment of comic strips and semi-realistic sketches. “However,” she shared, “drawing an automotive design is different.”

Each curve and line has to be meaningful. An automotive design project combines creativity, engineering awareness, and market insight. Students start with research into industry trends, target users, and brand identity before developing a clear brief and mood boards. Then comes the creative part with sketches, refined drawings, and both exterior and interior concepts, followed by digital modelling. Prototyping also involves clay or 3D-printed models, leading to high-quality visualisations and animations. 

To peak this uphill task, Sakina first focused on mastering perspective drawings and paper renderings. Then came a crash course in 3D modelling tools.

“Autodesk Fusion 360, SolidWorks, Rhino, Blender, Gravity Sketch, and Open Brush were just some of the tools I dived into. Each one taught me something different — offering new lessons in surfacing, sculpting, and visualisation.” she said.

Her toughest challenge though was clay modeling.

“I am not a pro at it. It was humbling, messy, and hard, but it deepened my understanding of design in ways software never could,” she said.

Her biggest takeaway?

“None of this is talent. It’s purely skill, and skill can be built with the right mindset.”

A vision realised

After sleepless nights and several nerve-wracking moments, Sakina unveiled her first automotive concept design: Zuus Sahari.

The name, Zuus Sahari, has a blend of personal and cultural inspirations. “Zuus is the wordplay of my parents’ names, Zainab and Yusuf. I wanted to pay homage to them as they gave me the chance to chase my dreams. And Sahari is taken from ‘Sahara’ which means support in Urdu and desert in Arabic,” explains Sakina.

She envisioned it as a luxury car-sharing system inspired by the Middle East, where Islamic motifs merge with modern minimalism. One of her strongest design influences was the rida—the traditional attire worn by Dawoodi Bohra women.

“I’ve always found the rida fascinating. It is modest yet expressive, and beautifully tailored. To me, it perfectly balances form, function, and aesthetics. I grew up watching women in my community design and stitch Ridas—hours of detailed, personal work. They were the original designers I was raised around. Through Zuus Sahari, I want to celebrate them,” she said.

The road ahead

If Sakina had not pursued art, she might have pursued engineering, especially given her fascination with F1. Automotive design, however, lets her unravel her creative passion and interest in the world of racing.  

“The beauty of product design is that it allows us to use art to push the boundaries of engineering. F1 has so many roles that value a design mind—additive designer, livery designer, 3D surface designer, visualization expert. I don’t need to be an engineer to make my mark,” she shares.

Shifting into the next gear, Sakina intends to take a gap year to garner real-world experience and learn what can’t be taught in a classroom. She will then head to university to pursue her Master’s, eager to embrace new challenges and see how far her ambitions carry her.