CKC 5L Electric Hot Water Bottle Products Designed for Bear Appliances

-Cut geometric blocks with highly recognizable contour lines to build a symbolic home aesthetic design language

-Starting from the real user demands, define the small selling points of user experience-oriented differentiation in details.

-Based on the requirements of single product design, systematic conception of subversive product concept reserve

Product Recognition x Home Aesthetics Definition

"01 Category Logic Refactoring 」

At the beginning of the electric thermos project with Bear Electric, we were faced with an extremely mature and even "over-competitive" category. Most products on the market are in the volume parameters, volume prices, industrial design is often reduced to the development of the front-end stage of the simple "shell" initiatives.

The first step in CKC's intervention was not to rush to sketch, but to reorganize the product definition. We believe that the product should not be an isolated design, but the final presentation of a series of systematic definitions.

02 Business Insights 」

In the development of home appliances, there is a very realistic business game. We use the well-known "28 laws" in life to make an analogy:

-Game of Heavy Asset Investment: In the category of adding more items, nearly 80% of the appearance mold investment of a product is invested in the main mold. This in turn leads to extremely heavy decision-making related to design language: the choice of radical and differentiated styling means the risk of narrowing the audience, while the choice of universal styling means a huge investment in exchange for mediocrity. The huge asset occupation often leads to extreme decision-making dilemmas in today's fast-paced top-grade market environment.

-Dislocation of product power: Looking at this problem in another dimension, we find that the dilemma is even worse: under the extreme cost competition, the bulk of product material costs tend to flow to homogenized technical parameters, while the sensory cost input that really determines market differentiation is often less than 20%. The benchmarking of technical parameters is often caused by the equal rights of industry standards. After being forced to invest a large part of resources in this direction, the budget that can really allocate the product image and user experience that users can perceive is very small.

The goal of CKC is to find a rational differentiation within this cost constraint: how to leverage a stronger product premium with a limited appearance budget.

03 Methodology Migration 」

Simple as stationery toys, complex to wearable equipment, complex handheld terminals and even new energy vehicles, CKC has been dealing with cross-border consultation from various industries since its inception. In this process, the question we most often hear has been: without relevant category experience, how to ensure the professionalism of design?

In fact, the design of an electric hot water bottle and the design of a smart wear, the underlying logic is common. The underlying logic of CKC's treatment project is always three core propositions: formal innovation under structural constraints, the dominant characteristics of user experience orientation, and the visual symbols that run through brands and products.

Form Innovation under the Restriction of Structure

How to explore the new forms and functions that the product may realize under the limitation of technology?

How does the explicit feature of user experience orientation define a unique product form that matches the user's true appeal, rather than "differentiation for the sake of differentiation"?

How can the visual symbols that run through the brand and product integrate the design language of the brand in the process of product design, Outline or detail processing, and form an exclusive user mind?



This deduction logic based on systematic definitions allows us to cross categories and provide rigorous and market-tested solution support for any complex project.



"04 Process Exploration 」

In order to find the best balance point, we deduced the prototype of multiple dimensions in the process, although some of the concepts did not fully land due to strategic reasons, but they constitute the product logic of user-oriented, rational decision-making for the project itself:

Physical cooling system (natural cooling)

We have conceived a removable dustproof top cover, through the physical gap to form a convection heat dissipation. The structure has strong commercial extensibility: the low-profile version naturally dissipates heat, while the high-profile version can match the active fan, realizing a set of language adaptation products.

"vertical and horizontal" adaptation logic

In view of the fragmentation of modern home desktop space, we designed a rotatable interactive screen. No matter whether the product is placed horizontally or vertically, the interface is always facing the user's perspective, which greatly improves the space adaptability of the product.

"Leap Screen"

Compared with the common "floating screen" competition design language on the market, we have adjusted the design method on the basis of it-without increasing the area of the circuit board and stacking additional components, the original consensus "floating screen" shape has been extended upward, and the extended part has been left blank and LOGO position reserved. This kind of design gives the impression of a larger proportion of the screen visually, and also brings more flexible and hierarchical changes in the product form.

"Safety Coupler"

Although the power supply couplers for household appliances basically meet the waterproof and leakage-proof standards, this cognition is often limited to the internal personnel of the manufacturer itself, and the related doubts have not been eliminated in the consumer group because of the popular science on the marketing side. Therefore, in this project, our designers have also put forward a "arch bridge" water tank base modeling concept: through the change of modeling elements, the coupler position is raised at the bottom of the water tank contact surface, which can effectively reduce the user's concern about short circuit and leakage caused by water exposure at the bottom when a 5L heavy container is placed in the kitchen basin for water receiving operation. At the same time, such a design can make the appearance of the product more overall and more recognizable.

"05 Solution 」

In the final landing scheme, we converged the redundant lines and focused the core memory points of the design on a characteristic contour line on the side of the fuselage.

Ergonomic Dip Interaction

The screen combined with the contour line to do a specific tilt processing. Whether operating in a standing position or observing from a distance, users can obtain information from the most comfortable perspective.

Visual inspiration from astronomical landscapes

In addition to the "rational screen inclination", the definition of this contour line also comes from the designers' commuting road, a glimpse of the first quarter moon hanging high in the night sky-a highly recognizable contour line sharply separating the intersection of light and dark, such a memorable but almost daily visible scene, which is skillfully and reasonably integrated into the modeling language of the electric thermos, a household product.

The "vertical cover" to solve the health pain point"

The lid can stand firmly on the desktop when opened, ensuring that the inner surface that contacts the condensed water does not contact the desktop dust. This detail was established early in the definition to address long-neglected health pain points.

Carving of Home Decoration Texture

Lid handle: emboss the relief texture of the building facade to enrich the fingertip touch.

Water tank handle

Through the injection molding process, the visual segmentation of smooth surface and imitation leather texture is realized, which weakens the "industrial sense" of electrical appliances and enhances the home atmosphere.

quenching screen aesthetics

The consideration of the hidden interface ensures that the product is perfectly integrated with the home environment in a non-working state.

06 Conclusion 」

The "Rationality" of Design"

For CKC, design should never be a self-moving art, but a blend of returning to user needs and embracing business logic. Through this in-depth investment and rigorous deduction, we hope to provide manufacturing partners with truly competitive solutions in the market.





Design Team
Kai Chen, Ichiro Meng, Mia
Client
Bear Appliances


About Us

CKC is a cross-border innovative design company that provides multi-category and diversified design services. Our main creators are all from the top 500 companies in the home appliance industry. They embrace unlimited innovative project cooperation with an open mind, and always insist on exporting the value of long-term doctrine in the process. We look forward to emerging as a "professional innovative design company" and creating forward-looking extreme output in every industry.

Opportunity
If you expect to try some more subversive and forward-looking innovative solutions in future product planning, and hope that these solutions can purposefully and systematically transform certain long-term landing values; Or you are updating and iterating your product line and need family-based product PI standard formulation and application-based design transformation. These are all project cooperation opportunities that we are good at and expect. Please contact us.

Contact Us

Chen Kai

Principal Designer Project Management Leader

kai_chan@foxmail.com

18675452915



Meng Ichiro

Design Expert Strategy Advisor


WeChat Public Number: CKC Design Lab
Little Red Book: CKC Design Lab