earticle

영어

The design of a product can give pleasure to and impress its users, and nowadays has even come to express the style of consumers. This change has been reflected in the design of many household appliances. Home appliances, such as refrigerators, are recognized as one of the key elements leading household culture and the life style of consumers. For example, consumers consider refrigerators as one of the most important interior elements in their kitchens, especially in Korea. Because of the resulting demand for new refrigerator design, a greater emphasis is now put on the exterior design of refrigerators. For other appliances, their outer appearance is intended as a decoration or fashion item that can express a user’s unique style. In other words, designing a new product requires the appropriate reflection of current trends, which can greatly influence the success and failure of the design in the market. This study was conducted to reveal how concepts of refrigerators can be formed based on the foundation of understandings on design trends and to propose framework to establish design strategies for a new product design focusing on the surface design of refrigerators, namely CMF (Color, Material, & Finishing) design. The Design Concept Model was proposed to understand the mechanism of design trends and concepts of product design. First, the Design Concept Model for old products was established through surveys on the design trends of 2005-2008 that focused on interior and fashion design. By using this model as a reference, the Design Concept Model for new products for the next year was composed, and then the design strategies were finally suggested. This is the main procedure of the framework on how new design strategies can be proposed reflecting current design trends. Although the study was conducted using a case of LG ArtDIOS, the framework suggested in this study can be applicable to other product designs as well.