Publication

In today’s competitive market it is essential for companies to have a clear brand identity towards it consumers and users in order to be successful. An important factor is recognition of a product and how it is conceived through our perception, which is mainly an identification process based on familiarity, resemblance or similarity. Furthermore, the visual part of the brain organizes the surrounding into patterns, which are used as a guide for us, and to capture the surrounding is called getting its gist [5]. This abstract explores how the concept of a product gist may be used to create a conceptual product sign and also how it could be used to analyze what the design space looks like in a given product segment. Karjalainen and Snelder [2] states that: “Recognition is the key in a competitive market”. Recognition of a product is mainly conceived through our perception and is an identification process based on familiarity, resemblance or similarity [4]. Resemblance needs to have precedents to compare with and is depending on pre-established references [1]. In seeking novelty in a new design for a company there are always a risk that the consumer doesn’t recognizes the new product. Monö [3] calls this phenomenon to lose the current product sign. The Current product sign is described by Monö as the total physical appearance of all the products expressions (form, color, texture, sound, smell and taste). Earlier attempts to create a current product sign by Monö [3] have been made through simplify a product until it’s no longer  recognizable and then build up a product sign. This technique has limited the usefulness of current product sign. It’s too easy to abridge the shape to much and the designers own form preference can influence. “The activation of meaning from an image generally occurs in a small fraction of a second, much less time than it takes to read a paragraph of text. This activation through a single glance makes images far more efficient than words at conveying certain kinds of information.” [5] Based on Monö´s idéa, it would be interesting to explore if the concept of gist is a plausible piece of the puzzle to create a usable concept product sign or to try to locate the MAYA:n sweet spot. MAYA (Most Advanced Yet  Acceptable) is a principle presented by Raymond Loewy in 1951. What he means by the statement is that there is a commercial sweet spot in the creation of a design between the two variables: familiarity and uniqueness. It might also have a possible use as a way to analyze how the design space looks like in a given product segment. By overlaying pictures of products in the same segment might be a way of finding new design features and to become conscious of similarities and differences in the known features. It might imply if one has to stick closer to a company’s products or if one can or have to broaden the design space and be more expressive. A diverging product gist might also give an indication that the designer need to stick closer to the company’s design features so that the design DNA/design format is consistent and strengthens the brand. The proposed idea of product gist might give a possibility to obtain empirical data in the finding of design features and design cues.