Next Design Icon

Chairs, sitting there nicely, seen as design icon by many product designer. (Chairs sitting pretty as a design icon, but for how long? by Alice Rawsthorn)

What 's a design icon? Someone argue that the design icon should have certain criteria, so I started thinking about what are the basic elements of a chair? And more important, what should be add into these to qualify the next design icon?


I tried to analyze the most basic element of a chair as a design icon by sketching different chair designed by famous designer. Through this process I found out some basic elements within, and then I draw a diagram below:



Among these important elements I found out that..., So I started drawing some other pictures of cell phone to discover what the possibility would be for cell phone the be the next design icon:


And then I started to study the issue about "touch"...

Reading: Great Works by Naoto Fukasawa

I've been studying Naoto's works for 3 years, from his "Fan Concept" CD player to the cellphone design"Neon". I especially like the way he generously use the concept of "Intuitive Design", combined with his sense of humor.

For instance, in the design case of CD player, product of MUJI, Naoto use his great imagination, extend the visual impression of rotating CD to the breeze from an electric fan. What a great combination? Then he use his great styling ability to give this CD player some implication of fan in its form. For example, it's power switch is a downward pulling cord which reminds people the kitchen fan. Furthermore, the CD player is a speaker as well, and the pattern of small hole that allows sound wave flows is designated to be like radiating wave form.



Another project I like best is the "Neon" cell phone, which wisely simply use embedded LED to demonstrate the status of phone, without using too much decoration to show off its technology level.









I was first fascinated by the Naoto's project of "InfoBar", cell phone design for au KDDI. It was the most beautiful cell phone I've seen during past years. It's simple, elegant, and attractive. The styling is simple and rich, makes your eyes move around the body. After this I started to do research about Naoto Fukasawa.

I read a book "Design of Design" by Kenya Hara, a great Japanese communication designer. In the book Kenya Hara wrote down a very impressive project of tea bag design by Naoto. Regardless of the shape of the tea bag itself, Naoto focus on different aspect of user experience when using a tea bag. How can we combine the visual impression with our tasting experience? Naoto use the color design of the tag of tea bag, and remind the user, when the color of black tea in the cup matches the color of tag, "this is the best taste of a cup of black tea!"

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