CMF in Industrial Design

What is CMF?
CMF is the abbreviation of Color-Material-Finishing, which is a summary of color, material and surface treatment. It plays a very important role in industrial design.
Therefore, before becoming a qualified designer, one must have a thorough understanding of CMF.

color color

The color on the surface of the product is the first impression that catches people's eyes. The color can be colorful. However, while studying color, we cannot ignore surface details, texture, brightness, color segmentation, etc.

When color treatment is done on the surface of bright material, or the pigment itself is a smooth finish, the product with color will be more vivid. When color treatment is carried out on a soft matte surface, the color will weaken and appear softer visually.

The same surface is divided into multiple color blocks, and a single color on the same surface may have completely different meanings in conveying the meaning of the product to consumers.
Color is not only color, but also color with texture.

Usually we will define a color, Hue Saturation and Brightness through the three values of HSB. In this article, we will not repeat it much, but only express the products through different colors of the same type of products.

The above is Logitech's video system. The difference between red and metal colors seems to correspond to more active or serious application scenarios.

The above is the official picture of OPPO's mobile phone. The different temperaments reflected in black and gold have been further strengthened through the performance of different models.

This combination of green and wood can almost be synonymous with Nordic style.

Material material

Each material has a suitable processing and molding method and surface treatment method, so different materials have different display effects.
For example: aluminum: the beautiful luster after anodizing is produced by fully considering the reflectivity of the material, suitable mold and unique coating process.

Leather: The color of leather dyed with natural pigments is softer than traditional chemically dyed leather, can stand the test of time, and is more durable.

Finish surface processing
There are many ways to process materials. In addition to technical and physical properties, all materials have a very important property: senses. Sensory characteristics are a very important factor to improve the added value of products and make products spiritual.
Some surface touch or morphological changes require specific materials to show up.

Dark black and rose gold metal materials can reflect the emotional characteristics of men or women to a certain extent.

Summary:
CMF is a professional field focusing on color, materials and surface treatment development. This includes trend research, material and process research and development and analysis, strategy, creative thinking, etc.

For us in the learning stage, it is more important for CMF design to pay more attention to observation, pay more attention to accumulation, and use tools such as Pinterest to make more records to accumulate for the subsequent design. Also, understand the variables that describe different materials in the rendering software, and try to understand the impact of those variables on the material. I believe it will be helpful to your design.

In today's era of design convergence, it is difficult to distinguish the origin of products from many similar and different companies, but CMF can differentiate products through materials, colors, and processing processes. Therefore, the product is updated very quickly, and CMF designers should maintain a high degree of neural sensitivity to keep up with the needs and changes of the product.

Designers interested in CMF courses ~ Your benefits are here
Innovative Materials Museum Launches CMF Course to Analyze CMF Design of Popular Products in the Market

Let everyone learn the CMF design of the product, quickly master the knowledge and application of CMF, and explore and try the product again and again. When you understand CMF, you can find the infinite charm given to the product by CMF!