Industrial Design: Innovation in the 21st Century

-- Zhang Guangzhong

When we experience, enjoy, evaluate, analyze computer, telephone, television, tram and other modern industrial products, we actually experience, enjoy, evaluate and analyze industrial designs.
Because the product is a materialized culture, it is a concrete embodiment of design.
When we analyze and research product development, product promotion, product quality, industrial structure, and even economic development, we are actually judging industrial design.
Because industrial design is the soul of modern industrial civilization, it is the unification of modern science and technology and art, and also the unification of science and technology with economy and culture.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the rise of industrial design in Germany promoted the great development of the German economy; industrial design also created the myth of the modern industrial development of the United States, enabling the United States to rank as the throne of the world economy “big brother” in more than half a century... ...


Design competitiveness is an important competitiveness of industrial development

The 21st century market competition is the competition of science and technology, and it is also the competition of industrial design.
What is industrial design? In 1980, the authoritative exposition of the Paris International Academic Annual Conference was to lend training, technical knowledge, economic and visual experience, and impart new materials and structures, structures, shapes, colors, surface finishes, and new quality decorations. style.
The 21st century is the era of knowledge economy. The combination of highly developed science and technology and industrial design representing the trend of the new century will create a beautiful chapter for humanity.
Because industrial design is a joint effort of industrial designers, structural engineers, value analysts, model engineers, and other expert groups, it has formed a special competitive power in itself. Based on their scientific understanding of technology, products, markets, consumers, purchasing power, price levels, and lifestyle habits, experts have developed and designed a large number of competitive products. Such as Swiss mechanical watches, Microsoft's software...
Professor Gong Yanqing, a well-known scholar at Chiba University in Japan, introduced Japan’s economic development process and talked about the following three aspects: Japan’s national spirit of hard work and struggle; second, industrial design leading one step; third, continuous improvement. Economic policy. These three complement each other. Among them, industrial design has played a huge role in the take-off of the Japanese economy.
After the Asian financial crisis, the Japanese made painstaking study and faced the 21st century. Once again, "design competitiveness" was used as a magic weapon for the revitalization of the Japanese economy. They use brand-new design thinking, planning, designing "the solar economy", smart buildings, underground cities, space cities, fuzzy cars and so on.
Industrial design is the core competitiveness because it can allocate resources scientifically, with less investment and quick results. It is estimated that for every dollar invested in the appearance of an industrial product, it will bring a return of 1,500 US dollars. The data of Hitachi, Japan, is even more persuasive. For every 100 billion Yen increase in sales revenue of the company, the role of industrial design accounts for 51%, while the role of equipment modification accounts for only 12%. Obviously, the main purpose of industrial design is the same. The strategy of sustainable development is consistent. In the 21st century, industrial design will become the key to business survival. Businesses will truly feel that if there is no outstanding product design, sophisticated equipment and strict management of any advanced technology cannot create exquisite products.


"Organization design" is a brand-new revolution

Modern industrial design should include organizational design.
The modern enterprise system is the most important result of organizational design in the 20th century. However, the revolution in the corporate system is eternal. There is no end to the organizational design.
With the advent of information, automation and globalization, people have designed various production and marketing organizations such as “Global Factory”, “Yuan Paper Trade”, “Strategic Alliance”, “TV Direct”, and “Internet Marketing”.
We need to design a "global factory." In the era of increasingly detailed social division of labor, “bigger and all-round” and “small and complete” enterprises have been unable to occupy competitive advantages in fierce market competition. The grim reality of commercial warfare requires the joint efforts of numerous companies with various advantages. They support each other and complement each other to form a "global factory."
Nike (NIKE) is the world's largest supplier and manufacturer of travel shoes. The company focuses its efforts on the design and sale of products. The manufacture and manufacture of products is mainly carried out in emerging countries and regions. Nike does not even produce shoes. This is the initial stage of the "global factory."
We need to design "strategic alliances." Compaq Computer Corporation has quickly gained access to its own personal computer market that is not familiar with it and gained a competitive advantage. In the beginning, it formed a strategic strategic alliance with more than a dozen famous hardware and software companies such as Microsoft and Digito, "by leveraging the power of others. Develop yourself." Most parts of Compaq Computer also use outsourcing to organize the supply, and the company itself only possesses rapid research and development capabilities and marketing networks. Due to the implementation of lightweight high-elastic organizations and low-cost strategies, Compaq quickly occupied the personal computer market and became a global brand name for personal computers.


Design creativity is the basic quality of business people

Scientific industrial design, its soul is design creativity.
Design creativity is the basic quality of entering the enterprise in the 21st century.
There are too many classic stories we know about design ideas. Sony's Akio Morita suffered from too much irritability on her daughter's tape recorder and prompted the idea of ​​a "Musician": Two young computer "fans" in Silicon Valley in the United States based on "Let each consumer have a computer on the desk"
The ideals lead the trend of PC computers that are considered to be the "greatest technological revolution of the 20th century." Motorola engineers hired after the Gulf War have easily converted military technology into civilian use in order to "allow ordinary people to communicate on the move." The popularity of “Big Brother”, the goal of “making women and women able to operate video cameras”, enabled Sony to create “Handheld Pods,” and envisioned “immediately watching images during shooting”, inspiring Sharp’s “Color LCD Display”. The originality of a hand-held camera...
The 21st century design ideas were created in the collision of the "world product exchanges." At present, the total amount of various types of commodities in the world market is 1.5 million, and the Chinese market is only over 400,000. It can be seen that the market space for China's product categories is still large. Enterprises should vigorously inspire designers, create more ideas, develop more and actively participate in the surging tide of global industrial design.
The 21st century is also a period of great development in design education. Creativity requires education. Creativity also needs education to spread. At present, all countries are increasing the construction of design schools. For example, there are 35 industrial design institutes in the United States, 20 each in Japan and Germany, and 15 in South Korea. These design institutions have their eyes on the 21st century. Future world-class fashion designers, car designers, architectural designers... will be born from here.


"Virtual design" is a banner of high-tech design

The 21st century design should be "virtual design."
The concept of Virtual Reality (VR) technology was first proposed by American scientist Rael in the early 1980s. Now it has been widely used in various aspects of social life, such as "virtual production" and "virtual "Trade," "virtual markets," "virtual networks," etc. Virtual design is the pursuit of perfect and rational product design through "virtual reality".
The virtual design achieves through "three-dimensional space computer graphics": 1) Reality. Using computers and other technologies to realistically simulate people's various activities in the natural environment, and to grasp the real needs of people for the products; 2) Interaction. Realize the operation and communication between people and the designed objects to continuously improve the design model; 3) Conception. Emphasizes the three-dimensional display of three-dimensional graphics, making the design objects and people, the environment more realistic and objective.
Luo Bo, the design manager of the Cologne Research Center at Ford Motor Co., USA, believes that using virtual design technology can reduce the overall design process time by two-thirds.
In the 21st century, virtual design will play a magical role in architectural design, equipment design, product design, and costume design.


"Green Design" is the Design Theme of the New Century

Green design is a design that protects the human environment. The purpose of green design is to systematically explore the relationship between human industrial development and social civilization, effectively avoiding conflicts between high-tech industrialized societies and the ecological environment.
The green design requirements must be based on ecological ethics and master the following principles:
- Save material resources as much as possible in new products.
- Implement a semantic revolution. As products become more diversified, the product semantics that can give products "life and meaning" are replacing the relationship between traditional products "function and appearance." To highlight natural and environmental propositions.
- Design innovation. In terms of form, function, color, material selection, etc., we strive to climb high, precise, and sharp. At the same time, we must balance nationality and hierarchy.