Abstract
People’s lifestyle and living quality have changed dramatically in the 21st century. Nowadays, more and more consumers are concerned about looking for a product which is not only for functional and aesthetic pleasure but also emotional satisfaction. Products are objects that can make people happy, angry, proud or ashamed, secure or anxious. Products can empower, infuriate or delight – they have personality (Marzano 1998). This new trend has pushed the market toward a more emotionally-orientated approach in the manufacture of many future products. Today, consumers have a desire to see the extra value for the satisfaction at emotional level. Therefore, the study of product value at emotional pleasure will be a benefit to the future design for product designers. As we know, the frame structure of creating a pleasurable product has involved many aspects: cognition, cultural value, and the expression of physical feature on such a product. This paper tries to focus on the study of product’s physical form towards pleasure. The major issues in this study focus on the contours and complexity of the product form to the pleasurable emotion. The research includes visual psychology and perception. Arnheim’s theory of pictures, symbols and signs has provided a basic concept of designing the experiment. An experiment is conducted to demonstrate the relation between complexity and contours in product form. Hopefully, the result of this study will make a contribution to the future study in design areas.
Citation
Wu, T., and I, B. (2002) The study of shape elements in conveying pleasurable image, in Durling, D. and Shackleton, J. (eds.), Common Ground - DRS International Conference 2002, 5-7 September, London, United Kingdom. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2002/researchpapers/90
The study of shape elements in conveying pleasurable image
People’s lifestyle and living quality have changed dramatically in the 21st century. Nowadays, more and more consumers are concerned about looking for a product which is not only for functional and aesthetic pleasure but also emotional satisfaction. Products are objects that can make people happy, angry, proud or ashamed, secure or anxious. Products can empower, infuriate or delight – they have personality (Marzano 1998). This new trend has pushed the market toward a more emotionally-orientated approach in the manufacture of many future products. Today, consumers have a desire to see the extra value for the satisfaction at emotional level. Therefore, the study of product value at emotional pleasure will be a benefit to the future design for product designers. As we know, the frame structure of creating a pleasurable product has involved many aspects: cognition, cultural value, and the expression of physical feature on such a product. This paper tries to focus on the study of product’s physical form towards pleasure. The major issues in this study focus on the contours and complexity of the product form to the pleasurable emotion. The research includes visual psychology and perception. Arnheim’s theory of pictures, symbols and signs has provided a basic concept of designing the experiment. An experiment is conducted to demonstrate the relation between complexity and contours in product form. Hopefully, the result of this study will make a contribution to the future study in design areas.