Hot off a year ago when the financially-troubled car manufacturer Chrysler decided to jump on the "American cars need to be designed better!" bandwagon by returning to their old logo and promising to really focus on design stuffs, they've made another big change by replacing their head of design with Ralph Gilles, the designer who helped keep the company afloat with the manufacturer's only really widely successful car, the 300C. Trevor Creed, the former head, is retiring at the end of the month and was an interesting designer, somehow talking the company into releasing his more off-the-beaten-path cars like the PT Cruiser and the Dodge Viper, but it makes sense that, under current economic disasters and troubles surrounding Chrysler for the past few years, now probably isn't the time to continue on with dramatic experimentation. Here's a bit about Gilles' plans for the company's look:

The new design chief hopes to transfer the attention to detail paid to the Ram to other Chrysler vehicles. Designers, he said, labored over details such as sculpted headlamps, insetting the exhaust pipe into the rear bumper, and a softer, richer interior with small amounts of chrome and brushed metal finishes.

Chrysler probably will abandon its more angular designs in favor of a swooping, aerodynamic look that Gilles says will be "penned with a wind-swept feeling."

Rounded designs may not be more aerodynamic than the angular ones, but people perceive them to be more fuel efficient, Gilles said.

"If you can satisfy that a little bit, it helps," he said.

It looks like Paola Antonelli is going to have a new pal around the office, as it's been announced that Juliet Kinchin is moving from the Glasgow School of Art to become the MoMA's newest curator of the museum's design and architecture department. But it looks like Antonelli doesn't have to worry too much about her new employee sneaking up and stealing her gig as the senior curator, because while she focuses on the newer stuff, like the recent "Design and the Elastic Mind," Kinchin's specialty is apparently art and design from the past two centuries, which should now make the department a force to be reckoned with. Here's some about her past:

Ms. Kinchin comes to MoMA from the Glasgow School of Art, where she was a senior lecturer of art and design. She has also taught at the Bard Graduate Center for Study in the Decorative Arts and was a curator of decorative arts in several Glasgow museums and art galleries and at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

In a very weird turn of events, it's being reported that the Chief Technology Officer for Segway, Doug Field, will soon be leaving the company to take the role as Apple's VP of Product Design, serving directly under Jonathan Ive in his mysterious, underground Cave of Innovation. The announcement was made in one of the company's forums and now has the Mac-centric blog world all a buzz, wondering what exactly Apple thinks Field will bring to the table, considering how much of a dud the Segway has been. Also some questions have been raised considering Steve Jobs' comments about the gyroscopic scooter when it first launched:

"I think it sucks," Jobs said. While praising the technology, the Apple CEO said, "Its shape is not innovative, it's not elegant, it doesn't feel anthropomorphic."

As the Metropolitan Museum of Art tends to the task of replacing one Philippe, the Dia Art Foundation has snatched up another, today announcing the appointment of Philippe Vergne as director of the 34-year-old nonprofit institution. Vergne, currently the deputy director and chief curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, starts at Dia on September 15. He succeeds Jeffrey Weiss, who resigned in March.

As Dia director, Verne will oversee not only the glorious Dia:Beacon museum but also the foundation's long-term art installations scattered throughout the country (Robert Smithson's embattled "Spiral Jetty" among them) and a contemporary art program in New York City that is still in need of a home. "Beyond being an institution, Dia is a laboratory and a muse. It represents a necessary, dynamic model—one that has challenged, refined, and deepened the rules of institutional engagement with artists, their art, and their audiences," said Vergne is a statement issued by Dia this morning. "I am looking forward to working with and learning from Dia's outstanding staff and its highly dedicated board in leading this unique and inspiring institution towards a new chapter." Want to know more about Vergne? Click "continued..." for a full bio.

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Vogue looked internally to find a replacement for longtime design director Charles Churchward, who last week announced his retirement from the magazine. The new design director is none other than Danko Steiner, who has been Vogue's art director since late 2005, when he was plucked from Harper's Bazaar. "Working with [Churchward], when you're around people like that you don't realize what you learn along the way," Steiner told WWD. "I really admire his dedication to the magazine and the overall vision that he tried to maintain." Educated in Croatia at the University of Zagreb's School of Architecture, Steiner previously worked as a designer for Visionaire, that bubbling cauldron of creativity with alums that also include Stephen Gan (creative director of Harper's Bazaar) and, via offshoot V Magazine, Christopher Bollen (newly installed editor of Interview).

Charles Churchward, design director of Vogue since 1994, has announced his departure from the magazine, WWD reported today. Although he officially resigned on Monday, Churchward will stay through the late summer close of Vogue's phonebook-sized September issue, which last year weighed in at 840 pages, and then continue to work with the magazine on special projects. Meanwhile, he'll be focusing on projects of his own, including a biography of the late photographer Herb Ritts. Mentored by art director extraordinaire Alexander Lieberman, Churchward previously held design roles at publications including Mademoiselle, House & Garden, and Vanity Fair. Meanwhile, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour says that Churchward's exit does not portend a redesign for the magazine.

Mere weeks before its new high-design/low-cost hotel chain known as "aloft" welcomes its first guests, Starwood Hotels has lost Ross Klein, the president of its luxury brands group, which includes the W Hotels, St. Regis, and The Luxury Collection brands. He was also the concept and creative lead for aloft, the new division of W that is expected to reach as many as 500 hotels worldwide by 2012. Klein's resignation, the New York Post's Page Six reported on Sunday, came after months of battling with Starwood president and CEO Frits van Paasschen. Taking Klein's role will be Starwood's chief brand officer Phil McAveety.

Klein, however, wasted no time in finding a new gig. Hilton Hotels Corporation announced yesterday that Klein and former Starwood senior vice president Amar Lalvani will join Hilton as global head of luxury and lifestyle brands and global head of luxury and lifestyle brand development, respectively. Klein will oversee the company's global luxury and lifestyle brands, including Waldorf=Astoria and Conrad, and noted the press release, "will spearhead the company's entry into the lifestyle segment."

When you produce around three quarters of everything the world touches, you need to move at a slow and steady pace when it comes to making any changes. Such is the case with the big announcement that Procter & Gamble's head of design, Claudia Kotchka, will be retiring around a year from now, to be replaced by Philip Duncan, who is coming to take over after he leaves Landor and Associates. So see? Things have to move a little carefully, so as to not startle the things in your medicine cabinet, you cupboards and probably everything you've eaten all day. Here's a bit:

Kotchka, vice president - design, innovation and strategy, will retire March 31, 2009, the company said in a news release. From Aug. 1 until her retirement date, she will serve as a vice president on special assignment, reporting to Chairman and CEO A.G. Lafley. Kotchka has been with Cincinnati-based P&G for more than 31 years.

"Under Claudia's leadership, in only seven years, we've built world-class design capability at P&G," Lafley said in the release. "She helped integrate design and design thinking into how we innovate and how we operate as a company."

Thanks much to reader Joe Moran for the tip.

Where do you go after a storied, 31-year tenure at the helm of the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Just a few blocks, actually, to New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, where departing Metropolitan Museum director Philippe de Montebello will be the first professor to teach the history and culture of museums, The New York Times reported today. The move will be officially announced tonight at a NYU dinner.

Mr. de Montebello, who turned 72 on Friday, said he planned to teach full time. But rather than lecturing on what might seem most obvious — how to run a museum, for example, or the history of 15th- and 16th-century French and Netherlandish painting, his scholarly area of expertise — he said he would cover the history of collecting and connoisseurship and the evolution of museums, including the central issue of how the museum's mission can be defined in today's world.

And speaking of the Met, author Michael Gross is apparently in the market for a photo of the museum's facade worthy of the cover of his new book, Galleycat's Ron Hogan reports (via Liz Smith). The Met has forbidden stock photo agencies from selling image rights to the muckraking Gross, so here's your chance, aspiring photogs! Just be prepared to be paid in too-hot-for-print anecdotes about 740 Park in lieu of cash.

What happens when your plans to have Zaha Hadid build your new headquarters falls through and everyone is left disappointed and angry. Well, all pure speculation here, but if you're Rowan Moore, Director of the Architecture Foundation in the UK, you resign shortly thereafter, which is exactly what has just happened. You'll likely remember when the years-in-making Hadid plans fell through and it makes sense that, of all the dozens of people involved in the project, everybody would be looking for a scapegoat. And where better to look than at the top? Of course, no one is coming right out and saying that. Par for the course is that you say the exact opposite:

Former foundation chairman Will Alsop, who initially encouraged Moore to apply for the position, denied the scrapping of the headquarters building had led to Moore's resignation.

"The Zaha building proved to be difficult," he said. "But it's not [Moore's] fault or the fault of the trustees. I think he has done an excellent job, but it's probably time for him to move on."