Chinese Design Walking Alone

A good industrial design can not only extend the life cycle of products, but also have an important impact on the long-term development of enterprises.

When can "China design" be marketed as "made in China"?

"You don't have to consider the quality of it at all. Who would not like to look at this unique design?

If you look at those homemade MP3, if you get rid of logo, there are still a few who can tell clearly who is who.

Beijing Zhongguancun (love shares, quotes, information) before the apple counters in Hailong Electronic City, salesmen are introducing Apple Corp's iPod to several customers.

Although the price of iPod is several times higher than that of other MP3, sales are still very smooth.

A pair of Nike sports shoes, with dozens of design patents, not only comfortable, but also a variety of different occasions, design basketball shoes, running shoes, and so on, and shoes beautiful and generous, unique design.

This is why Nike shoes are several times more expensive than regular sneakers.

So what are the designers abroad?

In one room, the walls were covered with posters and baseball sticks in the corner.

The people here are also different in image. Some people even comb the Iverson pigtail. Everyone's desk is stacked with their favorite pictures. The whole room is full of fashion sense.

Surprisingly, such an avant-garde place is the design department of a foreign auto parts enterprise.

According to the person in charge of this enterprise, this casual, exaggerated and relaxed environment is deliberately created, so that designers can create unrestricted creativity and design distinctive products.

In China, however, the opposite is true.

Most Chinese enterprises have not yet realized their importance, and there are few investment in design. In the minds of people, designers are still equal to "old fashioned" and "bookworm".

While some workers in the south are working overtime to make shoes exported to the United States, some of them are wearing shoes that are not designed and fashioned.

Technological innovation and design are the two focuses of enterprise's product competition nowadays.

In addition to technological innovation, industrial design can also bring huge profit margins.

In China, the lack of creativity makes China's industrial design poor.

The rise of China's creative industry as a new industry power, the creative industry is rising rapidly all over the world.

What is creative industry?

The concept of creative industry emphasizes: "a new concept, trend of thought and economic practice, which is developed in the context of a globalized consumer society, emphasizing innovation, individual creativity, emphasizing cultural and artistic support and promotion of the economy".

This concept was formed in the UK in 1997, and the pioneer is the British creative industry task force.

Wu Guanying, a leading designer of Olympic Fuwa and Paralympic Funiu and professor of Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University, told reporters in an interview with this reporter that China's creative industry has been awakened.

The quarterly analysis report of the 2007 national cultural and creative industries shows that in the first quarter of this year, the output value of China's cultural and creative industries reached 512 billion 300 million yuan, an increase of 17.1% over the previous year, which is 6.4 percentage points higher than the GDP growth rate in the same period, which is 6.8 percentage points higher than that of the third industries during the same period.

According to the report, at present, China's cultural and creative industries need to fill in the blank space, with more than 500 billion yuan, and the industry has broad prospects for development.

For creative industries, Professor Wu Guanying told the Journal: as long as there is a good idea, there is a good system or mechanism to achieve, and finally economic benefits can be combined with the industry.

Professor Wu also gave an example of the Japanese animation industry to illustrate: some people painted cartoons, published in some magazines, if many people like it, then the animation city will buy this cartoon, and then start to operate in detail, making animation.

Because once someone likes it, it can produce value. Animation city has capital to find cooperation among various enterprises, such as props, clothes, toys, etc.

"This is a chain like commercialization process, and the economic benefits are good."

Design and brand design is the engine of business.

Today, with the increasing homogenization of products, industrial design is naturally appearing at the front desk.

As Akio Morita, former president of Sony Corp, said, "we believe that our competitors will have basically the same technology, similar product performance and market price in the future, and only design can distinguish them from our competitors."

In the 90s of last century, Samsung Corp was still unknown in South Korea. In just a few years, it became one of the top brands in the world. One of its tricks is to rely on excellent design.

By cultivating the designer's global perspective, Samsung launched a design revolution and quickly changed its brand image.

"Samsung is the example of using design to enhance brand value and expand market share."

An expert from the school of design of the Illinois Institute of technology commented.

When many people are excited about China becoming a "world factory", some people of insight are worried about it, because no matter where China's products go, they can never get rid of the image of cheap quality.

Even in China, most of the Chinese people prefer foreign brands and products under the condition of economic conditions.

Part of the reason is, of course, the quality of Chinese products is out of line.

But the most fundamental thing is that most enterprises will imitate others' design without forming their own design and brand.

Fashion, aestheticism, enterprise connotation, and lack of unified culture design elements, similar to the iPod type of foreign successful design, so that the vast majority of Chinese enterprises are hard to catch up with.

In response to this, there are frequent calls in China: in the process of building national brands, China's design is seriously missing.

Many of the world's biggest selling products are "Made in China", which comes from foreigners rather than Chinese manufacturers.

China produces the most TV sets, refrigerators, air conditioners and microwave ovens in the world, but most of them are labeled with others in the international market, even if they export their own brands, and the price is greatly reduced because of the backwardness of industrial design and process packaging.

Experts believe that a large number of Chinese enterprises regard the design as just a superficial task, which is an important reason for restricting the enterprises to do well in brand and large-scale production.

Brand is a symbol of corporate identity, including the unique cultural connotation of an enterprise. If there is no brand, the products made in China can only be placed in the stalls, corners or foreign "one dollar shops", and it is always difficult to make a good place, let alone become the first class in the world.

Brand building must be supported by design.

Industrial design is not just simple packaging. Excellent design should embody the cultural connotation of an enterprise, easy for customers to understand, and willing to use or purchase.

The more unique products and technologies a company designs, the higher its value.

The design must also be combined with the vision and brand positioning of the enterprise.

Many facts show that a good industrial design can not only extend the life cycle of products, but also have an important impact on the long-term development of enterprises.

In the book "the rise of creative class", Richard Florida, an American economist, points out that creativity has sprung up in the contemporary economy, showing the rise of a professional class and rising in the economy.

He believes that the creative class, including a "super creative core", is composed of people from "science and engineering, architecture and design, education, art, music and entertainment". This group's work is "creating new concepts, new technologies and new creative content."

When the "creative industry" is becoming a fashion title, China's "creative people" class is also rising, though it is far from being formed, it is already ready to come out.

Since the 80s of last century, the number of Chinese design institutes has increased by more than 2000%. Now there are more than 400 design schools, exporting more than 10000 graduates every year.

Under such a high growth, there is no surplus of Chinese designers.

Professor Wu Guanying told the financial digest reporters that the education of science class is not the best way to cultivate design talents. It is very difficult for top talents to appear in the training of classes. The comprehensive creative talents in the future are not learned in schools, but must be honed in the society and crawled out in real work.

At present, there are many problems in the curriculum design of industrial design major in many schools, which requires schools and enterprises to integrate resources together and form the foundation of education.

In view of the current "brainstorm" of a creative idea, Professor Wu also disagrees: "the creation of an idea, there must be a heavy cultural accumulation, it is impossible to tap the head out.

This statement is also very bad for guiding students.

His view is that the function of design is to pform ideas into reality.

To design something, first of all, we need to know what we want to design, for example, the washing machine is produced for washing clothes, so the purpose of the design is to wash clothes instead of people, not washing machines themselves.

Of course, "design can be inspired, but inspiration also has a variety of accumulation, or there is something triggering."

Now China's design education is a bit rigid. There are many things that can not be quantified by specific scores.

Since China has no shortage of creative talents, why does the Chinese Design Hall fail?

"The problems in the field of industrial design are not necessarily the problems of industrial design itself."

Professor Wu feels that there is a lack of a good mechanism.

For example, in view of the fact that China's animation industry is not very prosperous, Professor Wu's proposal is to introduce competition mechanism, and we should stand on the same starting point and compete fairly, and speak by market rather than leaders.

Another reason is that China's current property rights protection is not in place.

Pre design is a costly project. When it comes out, it is pirated all over the world. It is easy to not even get the cost, let alone benefit, which will damage the enthusiasm of Chinese design.

From "made in China" to "China design" industrial design, as a leading industry in the development of manufacturing industry, has become the source of competition and core power.

How to make use of industrial design as a competitive weapon for enterprises to create high added value and realize the pformation from "made in China" to "created in China" is a new challenge for Chinese enterprises after China makes the world.

According to analysis, the key to achieve this pformation is China's design.

For the time being, more Chinese companies still disagree with the fact that only a few Chinese companies have written designs into the company strategy.

The idea that wine is not afraid of alley is still prevailing.

Because of the need for short-term profits, many Chinese local enterprises do not want to spend too much time on design, but are keen on "bringing ism".

Professor Wu said that this mentality of quick success and instant benefit is very harmful to the long-term development of enterprises.

Because copying things from others is easy to lead to homogenization, and such enterprises are not competitive.

Chinese enterprises must meet the needs of the market in design, and have their own unique taste and characteristics.

It is understood that the real gap in the design of Chinese and foreign enterprises lies not only in the appearance of products, but also in the cultural connotation of enterprises. Design is a manifestation of corporate culture.

In an interview with finance digest, Professor Wu Guanying pointed out that design is not only a marketing strategy, but also a culture and a great concern for user experience.

For example, Apple Corp's consistent simplicity and fashion.

Manufacturing technology is the strength of Chinese people, so the "made in China" products from family workshops can be sold all over the world.

When can "China design" be marketed as "made in China"?

Obviously, with the help of Chinese design, the prospects for making in China will be more open.