Enter the era of personalized design

-- Times

High taste is not something that is elusive and unattainable. In fact, it can be seen everywhere and everyone can enjoy it, whether it is a can opener, a CD rack or a car. High taste can be reflected from anything. Manufacturers have recognized that consumers are not only looking for product features, but also that a product should reflect the personality of its owner. In 1999, the George Nelson Prize winner Karim, Rashid pointed out: "Our physical environment has made great progress, which makes people become more demanding as the audience appreciates the material landscape, and people are more willing to materialize. Life presents its own opinions.” Mark Dejkske, president of the American Industrial Designers Association, believes: “This is a new golden age in design history.”

A big business

We should say that this is the Platinum Age in the history of design because design has become a real big business. No one can say with certainty how big this business is, but as long as we think that last year US consumers spent a total of about 6 trillion U.S. dollars on the purchase of various goods and services, of which about one-fifth was used to buy household goods. It can be a little more conceptual. For example, the great success of the colorful Mac computers not only helped save Apple, but also inspired Dell, Gateway, and Comber to launch a large number of innovative, low-cost personal computers. The image of the new Beetle car has become a catalyst for the transformation of the automotive industry. Automakers are finally paying attention to the appearance of products because they know that if we don't do this, we will not buy their products anymore.

Nearly all manufacturers of products face the same problem. Dejolsk pointed out: "When industrial enterprises compete in the same price and function of the product, the design becomes the only important difference." His argument and the father of industrial design Raymond Lowell The point first made in the 1930s coincides. Lovi was a designer who brought "good luck" cigarettes and sleek Greyhound buses to the Americans. In 1934, he added some decorations to the "Cold Point" refrigerator to make its lines look more like then. After the competition in the market became smoother, the sales of Sears, which produces the refrigerator, rose sharply like rockets.

Reactivate

Today, managers and entrepreneurs want to create a variety of eclectic ideas for their livelihoods by creating good things in our lives, and are rejuvenating the design industry. Large companies such as Sony, Ford and European Electronics Group Philips have become participants in this design revolution. Architects and designers such as Philippe Stark, who promote the breaking of traditions, and emerging young rookies like Jasper Morrison or Mel Newson are also involved. Of course, Martha and Stewart, of course, have successfully used their understanding of fashion to shape themselves into a spokesperson for American tastes with billions of dollars in property. Martha's furniture chain has helped the discount department store chain, Kmart, to remove its operating deficit.

If someone really believes that Americans have new preferences for product design, this person must be Terence Conran who leads the British fashion trend. Twenty years ago, Conran opened many attractive furniture chains named after his name in the United States, but he abandoned the franchise business in the early 1990s. Now he is making a comeback and is determined to seize this new wave of design revolution. Last December he opened a 22,500-square-foot store in Manhattan. It's like he opened stores in London, Paris, and Tokyo. The Terence Conran Store in Manhattan is a department store that sells a variety of design style products, from a $17 digital digital watch to a $350 purple sofa.

Domestic and external factors

Americans are increasingly demanding product design. This is at least partly because the U.S. economy is in a period of prosperity. The development of residential construction has reached a historic scale, and people need to put something in their new house that shows their identity. In the past, having an expensive couch designed by a famous designer was a symbol of status, and it is important to have something with a personal touch. It's like a mosquito table that looks like an airplane wing, and a Conrad chair made from the so-called Bora Bora bark.

Ironically, this product design revolution has been helped by stores such as the Pottery Warehouse Company and the IKEA Furniture Chain Company which are not very "specialized" (specialize in certain types of goods). These sudden appearances in the mid-1990s in Central America are based on the premise of operating a business philosophy that customers who wish to have a pleasing living environment do not necessarily need to be interior decoration enthusiasts or must employ interior decorative designs. division. They allow customers to do their own decoration work.

People can quickly find answers in Target stores that have sprung up across the country. The supporters of the newly designed democracy of the United States have always ignored the trend. Afterwards, Target's executives realized that competing solely with prices for stores like Walmart stores was a strategy that could only lead to failure.

So, they reinvented the store on the basis of a simple principle: ask a famous designer who designs products for boutiques in the Soho district to design high-end products worth $20 worth of replica products for them.

There is nothing more technologically advanced than plastic that has long been thought to be neither worthwhile nor ugly. Since the beginning of the century when phenolic was widely used, people have never liked plastic as much as it does now. For example, polypropylene, which was introduced in the 1950s, is a plastic that people love very much. It can be shaped so smooth that it can give people almost sensuous pleasure, and it is as strong as a silk dye. Absorptive capacity. The German design company Credit Company and Coziol company have fully utilized the new life of plastics. Koziol company launched more than 300 kinds of goods collectively referred to as "kitchenware", including "natural" a pair of "smiley" spaghetti fork, long 'eyes' ice cream scoop and "legs" of "timm mother" Cutlery brushes, last year these goods were sold out from the shelves of American stores.

The company spared no effort

The need for these new design strategies is very urgent. General Foods is re-inspecting the cereal box, Kodak has stopped producing black-box cameras, and Sweinlein has designed the company's regular stapler to be streamlined. Companies that do not have design talent within the company are looking for popular designers as consultants. Barry Shepard, one of the founders of the SHR Sensitive Management company who helped design the Volkswagen Beetle, pointed out: “Manufacturers realize that consumers are looking for more than product features. An important product should reflect all of its Personality."

Pharmaceutical companies have so far introduced too many toothbrushes—ridged toothbrushes, curved toothbrushes, cone-shaped toothbrushes, toothbrushes with bars, dots, and whirlpool patterns—almost flooded. The above principles also apply to dozens of products that we previously thought were inconspicuous—garbage bins, brushes for cleaning toilets, and tools for grinding cheese. They are lovely and cheap, but they are also disposable.

Stark is willing to design cheap products. His design of juicers, bottle drivers, and the bizarre and quirky design concepts he used in hotel rooms have contributed greatly to the current wave of design in the United States. He said that he hopes that good design can become a kind of product that everyone can enjoy but can't casually spoil. He pointed out that each time he designed the chair's price is cheaper than the previous design. He said: "I hope everyone can get the best product at the grocery store with the right price."

The question now is whether the design economy can continue to develop. Or, when the wave of prosperity in the United States subsides, do we have to gradually return to the simple path of focusing on functionality? If Raymond Rowe is still alive, he will remind us that he began his career during the Great Depression, so the real design revolution may still come.