The Study Of The Appearance In Product Design

The product design is an important constitute of industry design. The appearance is the outside sight that the product gives to people. The appearance, we usually consider that, the "form" is an out sight or the shape of an object, and the "essence" is the spirit under the shape, is the "spirit situation" in the appearance. The appearance is the combination of the "shape" and "expression". See from the eye of today's design, the appearance of product design is always connected with the product's function, material & craft, ergonmics, color etc. This text presents the detailed research from below aspect:A. The appearance and function. The product function can be divided into the practical function and the aesthetic function. Product exists for person to use. Product's appearance design must be based on the practical function of the product. In the history of industrial design, from Saliwen bring out "the form follow the function" until today's "design for human being", they are the same in essence. With the development of the design, the meaning of function is extended and developing. Now the function included fundamental practical function, aesthetic function, meet the demand of people's spirit, the psychological need etc. The function should be comprehended to the whole from inside to outside, from effect value to aesthetic value. The product design is still is submitted to "the form follow the function".B. Appearance and material & craft, ergonomics and color. The product design, generally have three forms: the using material decides the product appearance; the appearance style decides the material; give a concept, when can't ascertain the appearance and the material, use the form, material, craft to attain the best result. Along with the development of material and craft, the space of the appearance design becomes much vaster consequently. With the more and more extensive application of the miniature electronics unit in the engineering, the product appearance may be completely freely designed. Designers will chiefly look for the reasonable gist on the relationship between person and machine to get the reasonable appearance. The color is an important factor. The appropriate matching of color can make up for the defect in appearance design, and make the appearance more perfect.C. Appearance and psychology. Along with the development of technology, the same kind of product is more and more similar in function, material & craft etc. The product appearance is gradually change from delivering the function to the semantic, and researching on users' psychology becomes more and more important. The appearance not only carries the product function , but also delivers the semantic.Finally, through analyzing the relationship between the above main factors with the appearance, we can find that, with the development of science & technology, one hand, high technology, particularly the material & craft still, is the main factor that influencing the appearance; on the other hand, the product design pays more and more attention to the demand on the people's spirit level, consequently, the design of the appearance of product pays much more attention to delivering the semantic.