Design thinking triggered by the "lazy corner" series of products. What kind of mentality should we take to design household necessities?

Aggie's daily necessities series for "Lazy Corner"


Hello, long time no see. Do you miss Agee?
Friends who are familiar with Agee all know that I like designing consumer electronics and household products very much. Recently, it was very difficult to take time to update the article, so I used the daily necessities series designed before to talk about my experience.


What is daily necessities
Commodity is a word that everyone is familiar. I believe that everyone who is reading the article can cite many examples of common daily necessities in life. Before talking about commodity design, I would like to give it two definitions. In a broad sense, products that can maintain high-frequency contact with people are considered daily necessities. As small as pots and pans, as large as furniture and even cars are included. In a narrow sense, in a relatively closed environment, the small and medium-sized products that we often use in our daily life offices are called daily necessities. Today Agee will mainly talk to you about the second kind.

Hall sundries hanger: In order to facilitate the storage of keys and rubber bands, two hook-type structures are designed.


Little embarrassment
When you talk about the design of daily necessities with a non-professional person, there is a high probability of hearing "What is the good design of this soap box?" or "Has that storage box been designed?" and so on. Don't laugh when you hear this, it's all Agee's personal experience. Of course, this kind of situation is also well understood. First, daily necessities are much smaller than most products, and it is not easy to attract attention. Secondly, people are often too familiar with things to ignore the details and think that many things are taken for granted. Of course, there is nothing in the world that should be taken for granted. Especially after you have carefully studied almost all kinds of daily necessities on X Bao, you can understand why MUJI can expand wildly in China and spread life and values by relying on seemingly "undesigned" products. However, some domestic brands with fancy designs can only sell a few dozen sales a month.

Hidden hook at the bottom of the table: originally a single hook was designed to be two opposite each other.
Things are not easy to fall off when hung up. The gap in the middle can also temporarily clamp light and thin objects such as business cards.


Micro world
If the default tolerance in the construction industry is 5mm/0.5 and the furniture industry is 1mm/0.25, then the daily necessities I mentioned are only about 0.1mm/0.1. In the eyes of most people, 1mm may already be insignificant. However, in the eyes of designers, dividing 1mm into 10 can just reflect the subtle differences between products, not to mention the already mini daily necessities.

Cotton label box


People will unconsciously design daily necessities from a "condescending" perspective. This makes it easy to ignore some details of the product itself. As I mentioned before, the key point that determines the "outcome" of such products may be 0.1mm or 0.1. Therefore, how to get rid of this bad habit becomes particularly important.

A special red mantis


I have seen a BBC documentary called "The Micro World of Nature. In the film, scientists use macro cameras to observe and study the habits and lifestyles of ants, bees, reptiles and other insects that are easily overlooked by people in natural or simulated scenes. In some cases, they will lead us into their nests or habitats in the first-angle shooting of insects. The audience can intuitively feel how magnificent the flowers and plants that usually seem small are in the eyes of these little lives. You will be shocked by the fact that there are so many wonderful and colorful details and stories under a dead leaf, a branch and a piece of gravel.

A form of demonstration and courtship of jumping spiders


Macro viewing angle
I got inspiration from this documentary. When I was handling the design of daily necessities, I tried to "shrink" myself and imagine the product itself as a building. As an architect, I personally surround myself and enter the "building" to examine every detail of the product. From a macro perspective, those points that are not easy to find will be enlarged a lot. All details of the product can be further polished and optimized.

Bottle opener


An opportunity
Some friends once suggested that I could try to contact and design some large products such as cars or refrigerators and air conditioners. The reason is that their premium is much higher than that of daily necessities. To be honest, I have also wavered, because from the average, they are also two top designers, one is good at the automotive field, and the other is good at small household appliances and daily necessities. Their income may differ by more than 10 times.

Water filter soap box


Just when I was confused, a commodity brand "Lazy Corner" that was unfamiliar to me at that time came into my life. At that time, the "lazy corner" was in a critical period of product update iteration. The person in charge of the other party appreciated my design style and came with full sincerity. Everyone met online and offline, talked happily, and hit it off. During the conversation, I learned that they want to be the MUJI of China and the "lazy corner" of the world. As a daily necessities designer, I naturally will not refuse this invitation.

Plug hanger: It can also be used to hang towels, plastic bags and other items


What the lazy corner needs is a style similar to MUJI. Remove all superfluous elements, simple, delicate and practical. Compared with MUJI, their products at this stage are more in line with the needs of Chinese people in terms of function and size. There will be no problems such as the spoon is too small, the bowl is too shallow or the chopsticks are too short due to the different living habits of the Chinese and Japanese people, and the product price will be more people-friendly.

Underwear box: The middle partition can be adjusted as required. The height of the two ends of the partition is different, which is beautiful and convenient for users to extract.


Time flies. In a short period of one and a half years, I have cooperated with Lazy Corner on more than ten products. Most of them have already been listed, and some have achieved good results of selling tens of thousands of pieces a month. To say what I have gained from this round of cooperation, I think there are three. First of all, of course, I met a group of boys and girls who are willing to offer their youth to daily necessities, each of whom is serious, responsible and full of passion. Secondly, let me really understand the current situation and development trend of commodity market in detail. Although I have been in contact with daily necessities before, I have always stayed at the design level. It is said that the common fault of designers is that they do not understand the market. In the one and a half years after receiving this cooperation demand, in order to make this series truly successful, I have almost seen hundreds of daily necessities in X Bao. Not for design, but to better understand the real needs of consumers. It is a very heart-rending word to applaud or not to be popular. It is necessary to understand why good products are sold and why poor products are sold. These can be intuitively learned by reading the user's messages and comments. Of course, in the end, the effort pays off. A complete set of products recognized by the market is the greatest harvest and treasure for designers.

Case with handle


To be honest, before you really understand the commodity market. I have always felt that this is an industry that relies on very low gross profit to win by volume. But then I suddenly found that good daily necessities can also be sold at a relatively high premium, coupled with the monthly sales of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, this is like a year with the people's consumption level and cognition rising and growing savagely super-huge rigid demand market. It is no wonder that in recent years, there have been a lot of investment and hot money flocking to share this big cake.

Portable Dental Case


Look, smell, ask, cut
Friends with a little knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine must be familiar with these four words. This is the way in which TCM diagnoses a patient's condition in the usual sense. Looking, refers to the appearance; smelling, refers to listening to sound; asking, refers to asking about symptoms; cutting, refers to feeling the pulse. They are collectively called four clinics.
Seeing a doctor is a science, and looking at products is the same. When it is not the patient but the product in front of us, how to analyze it scientifically? In Agee's view, there is also a set of "four diagnosis" to share with you. Looking, refers to observing the outline of the product, surface color coating, etc.; smelling, refers to the smell emitted by the product. Some products may have odor labels. Ask the designer himself or go online to inquire about the relevant background of the product. Cut, refers to touch the surface of the product, experience the subtle difference of hand feel. This can help you better understand the surface treatment process of the product. After these four steps, you can get a general idea of some simple daily necessities and electronic consumer goods. Of course, some "violent" partners also have a "solution" operation. Because the picture is too bloody, Agee will not describe it. Ha ha!

Press the open-lid trash can


Some tips
People often ask me if there are any tricks in designing simple products. Or in other words, what kind of products are considered to be successful in design in my eyes. In fact, I have also thought about this problem for a long time. To me, designing such products is more like a sense of design or emotional output from the inside out. Just like when you encountered a grammar problem in school, you can't tell why you chose this answer very often. You can answer it correctly just because it is the most smooth to read in the original sentence. This ability comes from your strong sense of language. People with a good sense of language will perform much better in communication, expression, writing and other aspects than those who rely on rote memorization and test-oriented learning. I think design is the same. By studying a lot of excellent design works, improving aesthetic level, increasing knowledge and accumulating experience, you will get a "sense of design". This ability will "crush" the upper limit of your design level. Therefore, Agee's advice to everyone is to study the so-called "golden data" less and cultivate more "sense of design" is the right way.

Large storage box: The lid is recessed during design, so that the top has an open storage space


At present, if we must give a definition of simple wind products, I think it is "able to insert reasonable disorder in order" that can be regarded as a successful product at the design level. To explain it in more popular terms, it is to add a little curve to the straight line or add some protrusions to the plane to do not disobey or affectation, which is regarded as a successful simple design.

Hook for self-adjusting direction


Finally, we still need to use daily necessities in person, otherwise everything is on paper. If you want to design daily necessities well, you must learn how to taste and enjoy life. Slow down the pace of your life as much as possible. I have always felt that a person who has no personal free time or is squeezed out of all his energy every day by work cannot become a great designer. In this life mode, 80 points will be the vertex and end of your design.

Refrigerator magnet inspired by Thailand's "Qualy" cloud: it matches the cloud with lightning and raindrops. Users can combine small scenes on the refrigerator according to their preferences.


The reason why people need to sleep every day is not only because muscles and internal organs need to rest, but more importantly, the brain needs to filter, screen and delete all kinds of information accumulated in one day to prepare for readmission the next day. I once saw a documentary about a group of people with "special functions", one of which was about "memory". "Hypermemory" simply means having super memory. This does not mean that you can recall what you ate last night and it is called "hypermemory". It only shows that your memory is very good. People suffering from this kind of disease can remember all the information they saw during the day, including the color of bricks on the road, the shape of every cloud in the sky, the number of buildings passing by, the content on the cover of every newspaper on the street newspaper stand, the number of buses driving by them, etc... In short, everything that has been seen by the eyes will be remembered. Each of us unintentionally receives similar excess information every day, except that the brain helps us delete 90% of the useless parts in our sleep. However, the brain of these special people is missing in this part of the function, resulting in all the information being completely preserved. As a result, it is known that gradually some people's thoughts begin to be confused, and even delusions, hallucinations, etc., make life unable to be maintained like ordinary people.

Portable soap box


After explaining the "hypermemory" for so long, I actually want to explain a problem. It must not be a good thing to be passive and not empty. If you want to make a breakthrough in design and achieve success, you must keep your time for independent thinking and free allocation every day. This time does not have to be spent playing or sleeping. It can be reading, writing or even writing freely. In this process, you can simulate the behavior of the brain at night, summarize the gains and losses of the past period of time, remove the dross and retain the essence. After this behavior has been repeatedly operated for a period of time, you will find that your design level has improved greatly.

Removable, height-adjusted double shoe box


Conclusion
After entering the 2019, due to the increasing working pressure, Agee found that his free time dropped sharply, so the frequency of recent updates has also slowed down. I hope you can understand more and rest assured that I will not abandon more!


(The copyright of the pictures of daily necessities in the text of this article belongs to Lazy Corner, and private users must investigate)