Design Culture and Emotional Design

Abstract: This article proposes the idea that design and culture are connected through emotions. It discusses the important role of culture in design and advocates that it should form its own design style where traditional culture meets modern trends and its own personalities. This is the mission of modern Chinese designers.

Keywords: design culture emotion

When we look at a product at first glance, how do we judge its merits? Since there is no practice in the internal functions and effects of the product, we first accept the external features of the product. Then the way we evaluate is naturally the appearance of the appearance, and we call it aesthetic taste. . However, in fact, things do not stop there. Each product has its own meaning. Although it is silent, it expresses what we have expressed throughout our lives. Through its form, color, material, and layout, our products form a relationship in our brain through our perception. Its overall impression. This impression includes not only its aesthetic level but also the meaning of quality, consideration, and symbolism. People accept these contents, but these meanings will not be sorted into mathematics as one line into the human brain, and the conclusion that the overall impression of the product will be calculated. Because these meanings themselves do not have a clear measurement standard, the meaning of the meaning itself in the entire evaluation system is also different. So the brain's job is to translate these vague meanings into a universal feeling based on everyone's different ways - we call it "emotion."

Emotions contain rich content, dominate people's emotions and emotions, and often affect the way of thinking. The fact that the external features of the product convey to people is in fact an emotion. Like a small and exquisite MP3, we only see the external features, but it is the MP3's convenient dexterity, noble quality and other information.

This information triggers our love of MP3. This kind of emotion is the product's affirmation. The quality of the product is evident. At the same time, there is such a situation that one and the same product is very popular in the United States and there is little interest in Japan. Naturally this is a different choice from emotions. Different people have their own different criteria. However, if emotions are really so elusive, then why does it appear that "the people of the United States are more acceptable and people in Japan are more unacceptable?" Hiding this is actually a huge influence of culture. Everyone grew up in a specific atmosphere from birth, clothing, food, housing, transportation, education, learning, thinking, and examination. Although they were complicated in form, they all revolved around a center. This center is culture. . The culture here refers to social ideology—politics, law, philosophy, literature, art, including people’s food, clothing, accommodation, various ethics, human relationships, and the customs and habits that have been formed in these major areas and passed on from generation to generation. Values, norms, attitudes to life, lifestyle, ethics, beliefs, etc.

Culture is universal, it is the bond of certain social groups, and therefore has influence. This kind of influence is huge and hidden. Everyone is unaware of its mercy. This will lead to "people in the United States are more able to accept certain things," which is the universality of culture. At the same time, culture is different, and different nationalities, countries, and regions are often the most direct factors that constitute cultural differences. This difference is manifested in people's differences in customs, lifestyles, ethics, value standards, religious beliefs, consumption habits, etc., and thus constitute a variety of complex social phenomena. Invisible to the culture, how does it cause these commonalities and personalities? Human beings are a combination of material creation and spiritual creation. Culture is created by humans. It cannot directly affect lifestyles and customs. It can only affect people by themselves and affect all aspects of society.

Among them, emotion plays a role as a bridge. Emotion is the expression of culture, and culture is the source of emotion. The cultural features of the savage Mayan civilization have taught cruel nations so that their feelings cannot understand kindness and tolerance. The cultural characteristics of China’s peaceful and mean doctrine have given birth to the Chinese people who love peace and hard work. In their view, they have been humiliated better than invading foreign nationalities. With what kind of cultural background, what kind of emotional characteristics can be produced, and these emotional characteristics are appealing to the outside and are the composition of society. Therefore, the evaluation of the product can not get rid of the emotional drive, cultural constraints, on the design is also the same reason.

“Art is the symbolic creation of human emotions.” Assuming that it is free from the business attributes involved, this phrase also applies to design. The responsibility of the designer is not to create or simulate but to create. But instead of creating bodies, bodies exist in themselves, such as triangles, circles, and squares. Designers consider how to create a new symbol through the association of these bodies. This new symbol contains the designer's emotions. His intentions. What is reflected in this emotion is the form of the culture that the designer himself is impregnating. The designer just visualizes it so that the consumer can receive this kind of emotional communication and launch it to produce this emotion. The part of culture experiences the charm. This is where culture is important for design.

Designer consumers once mentioned consumers, have to mention the commercial nature of the design. Artistically, an artist can express his emotions with a perfect technique and can directly influence the viewer's attitude. Whether this kind of emotion is pleasure or unpleasant, the work is successful. As a designer, it is also necessary to consider the cultural attitudes held by consumers, and the emotions they express when they observe the products based on their own cultural qualities, thinking and understanding. Of course, this attitude can also be guided and infected, but this requires the product to be at least partly coincident with the consumer's thinking understanding. Women of ethnic groups have long necks as their beauty. From the time of adolescent girls, they began to neck around their necks to stretch their necks. Although this caused the physiological function of the neck to be destroyed to a great extent, the locals used it as The principle of the United States. If you can't understand their culture, how can you appreciate such a long neck beauty? Looking back at the status quo of China's design, the reason why China does not have a major breakthrough in the design world is, to a large extent, the designer's lack of cultural heritage. Although the designer is still tenaciously expressing his own emotions, it is difficult for this emotion to reflect a glamorous cultural heritage. This must be said to have a great relationship with the historical development of the entire society. Many of our cultures have been slowly lost in the "complete" revolution. The current designer, while claiming to be growing up in a country with 5,000 years of civilization, is probably only a few decades or even shorter.

It can be said that, to a great extent, this generation of designers grew up in the cultural desert. Even if we graduated from the early days of liberation or earlier, even if they were engineering or science, the essay of the essay was not inferior to that of the liberal arts students. In their professional expositions, the concise grammar and grammar left by our ancestors The lexical expressions are often expressed clearly and simply. People have to admire the talent of an ancient civilization with 5,000 years of cultural tradition! But even today, even a generation who understands the language of our ancients has become very difficult, it is very difficult to ask them to carry forward the cultural essence of their ancestors. Therefore, China's design lacks a cultural flavor. Without the essence, there is nothing to be normal.

Modern design increasingly recognizes localization and nationalization. Lu Xun said long ago: “Only the nation is the world.” This phrase is used to meddle in the design of China today. The so-called localization is the identification of local culture, not the recognition of graphic images. We must have the courage to recognize the "five-thousand-year-old civilization--deep foundation" fault, effectively explore the connotation of Chinese culture from scratch, and find out where traditional culture meets modern trends and its own personalities to form its own design style. This is The mission of modern Chinese designers lies.


Author / Ma Wenya