The baby elephant interviewed last week.
A post-90s guy known as a "ghost" designer in the domestic design industry
He is Hu Haoxiang Erik Hu
Two consecutive German Red Dot Supreme Award and iF Design Award winners
Recognized by Shenzhen Municipal Government as overseas high-level A talents
With curiosity about this designer
The baby elephant had the next conversation with him.

01/ Who is he?/

▲ Erik Hu, Haoxiang Hu

Hello everyone, I am Erik, Oclean's chief designer, a post-90s Cantonese.

Graduated from the Department of Industrial Modeling and Design of Hunan University, and then went to the Central Saint Martin School of Art and Design in the United Kingdom to continue studying product design, and then studied at the Domos School of Design in Italy.

Once worked in Milan Jozeph Forakis Studio, participated in Foscarini, The Plust Collection, Italia Independent and other projects.

At present, he holds the position of product chief designer in Shenzhen Yunding Information Technology Co., Ltd., responsible for the design of Oclean brand intelligent oral care products.


02
/New Products Coming Out/
Oclean X Nature electric toothbrush

Product name: Oclean X Nature
Advertising slogan: "Smart" blessing, return to natural white
Color: polar night purple, morning mist green, sakura powder


Xiao Xiang: What is the main design concept of this new product?

Hu Haoxiang: This new product is an upgrade based on the Oclean X product we launched last year. The core of the design inspiration for this upgrade is a natural gift.

As Zheng Banqiao said: "In the clear autumn of Jiangguan, the bamboo, the smoke, the sun and the fog are all floating among the dense leaves of the sparse technique. The chest is full of vitality, so there is a painting." In fact, our design is the same, what we want to express is the bamboo in our chest.

▲ Inspiration intention map (picture from pexels)

All things in nature are rearranged and combined by our feeling, touch, perception and vision. Form a new product with human emotional temperature.

They have virtually deepened our worship and awe of nature. What we want to do is to bring the beauty of nature into the daily life of urbanites.

At the same time, Oclean X series is also the industry's first color touch screen electric toothbrush.

The biggest highlight is the color touch screen built in the body of the electric toothbrush, which can not only directly display the brushing data information, but also directly adjust the brushing mode, brushing strength and other settings through the touch screen.

So far, there is no direct competition in the market.

Love the landscape and indulge in nature is the most natural pursuit of people.

This time, we have selected three of the most distinctive colors from nature: polar night purple, morning fog green and Luoying powder, hoping to comfort the tired hearts of urban people with natural elements.

Let people re-examine their lives through contact with natural elements, obtain inner healing and enrichment, and discover the mystery of life.


[1]]
polar night purple
The inspiration for the polar night purple color is aurora, and its key word is expectation.

▲ polar night purple

I have traveled to Iceland and Norway 4 times to seek aurora, but unfortunately I failed to do so every time. But I have never given up hope. After all, chasing aurora is a happy thing.

We hope to be able to express the mystery and expectation of nature through "extreme night purple. After all, there is expectation, there will be hope. Even a little light of hope can light up the yearning for nature and freedom in the urban haze.


[2]]
Morning fog green
The key word of morning mist green is wake-up.

▲ Morning fog green

Daily trivial things inevitably make people increasingly numb. I hope to pass this relaxation and awakening to the urban crowd through the green color of morning fog.

The first thing every morning is to brush your teeth, open your sleepy eyes, a touch of morning mist green, across the reinforced concrete urban forest, with the first sunshine to clear the fog in the forest, bringing the freshest air.


[3]]
Luo Ying Powder
Luoying powder, as its name is, is inspired by cherry blossoms.

▲ Luo Ying Powder

The world knows the splendor of cherry blossoms, but I want to express my strength with cherry blossoms. Some time ago, many people should have seen the video of Wuhan cherry blossoms blooming during the epidemic. Without the sea of people in the past, the cherry blossoms in the city bloom quietly and fall quietly, like the wind and rain like the sea. After a cold winter, it will have all the strength it has accumulated, releasing all the beauty overnight.

Let's have more confidence in the victory of the epidemic, and it also inspired my creative inspiration.

Cherry blossoms are gorgeous, and their femininity contains wild vitality, just like the beauty of modern women. Independence, intellectual, showing elegance in softness and balance of power.



Little Elephant: What is the difference between the color of the polar night purple, morning fog green and Luoying powder and the so-called net red electric toothbrush on the market? Personally, I feel that you are a little introverted in color treatment, why?

Hu Haoxiang: A good-looking color is enduring and not aggressive. (It is necessary to get the most natural and comfortable color through continuous color mixing, testing and proofing.)

The introduction of these three colors is the color determined by our team after more than 300 color mixing, more than 50 proofing and repeated adjustments.

▲ Proofing some products

I think colors have a life cycle. Especially now everyone likes to chase the popular color, this popular color at first look amazing, catch the eye, but over time, will produce visual fatigue, and even produce a sense of disgust.

At present, most products on the market are just catering to the popularity. If you say mint green is popular this year, I will produce mint green. If you say avocado green is popular in this year, I will produce avocado green. Designers don't think about the relationship between color and products at all, just change colors.

The job of a real product designer is to balance this "amazing" and "time test", which is commonly known as how to make colors durable.

It can be said that our color is not catering to the fashion. Five or ten years later, looking at this color, it is still beautiful and can still move you. This is the power of classics.



Xiao Xiang: Toothbrush is a familiar daily necessities. How do you control the details of the product in the process of designing this new product?

Hu Haoxiang: User experience is paramount, and ordinary things need the most care. Holding in the hand and in the mouth, these most inconspicuous contacts are the important entry points for my consideration.

Holding this action is the most common and natural state of human hands. Starting from ergonomics, it is necessary to consider that size, shape, material, and touch are all factors that affect comfort.

▲ Details Display

When people see this product, they naturally pick it up, and their thumbs naturally fall into the key position. This is second nature. All our designs must follow human second nature.

▲ Use of color touch screen

For example, Oclean X Nature's color touch screen, why do we think of adding a touch screen to electric toothbrush products? Because the communication on the screen is the most intuitive, what you see is what you get, and there is no need for complicated transformation.

After the user brushes the teeth, the blind spot monitoring results are displayed visually on the screen, and the brushing effect is displayed in eight areas, which is the most intuitive.

At the same time, the setting results can be seen intuitively by sliding the screen to set the brushing strength, mode, time, etc. The interaction of sliding operation is also a well-known operation method for mobile phone screen and bracelet screen, and there is no learning cost.

▲ Wall mount for suspension storage

Details are the place that best reflects the designer's skill, and the simplest things are often the most difficult. A small change in detail stems from a lot of research and insight into users.

Oclean X Nature's suspended storage wall mount is the first in the industry. Everyone knows that electric toothbrushes are placed in the bathroom. The humid air is easy to breed bacteria, and the bottom is more prone to water stains and mildew.

The suspended storage wall mount first solves the problem of storage space. It is suspended to ensure ventilation and dryness, quick draining and no mildew. In addition, the storage mount is removed and transformed into a charging base. It can be said that one design solves three problems.

▲ Product use effect display

▲ Three different product packaging displays


03
/About Designers/

▲ Hu Haoxiang Erik

Little Elephant: How to connect with design? What attracts you?

Hu Haoxiang: I can become a product designer because I was influenced by my father since I was a child. When I was young, I liked painting very much. My father was arguably a '90s geek.

At that time, when everyone's computers were CRT monitors, my father bought LCD monitors. The huge display with square head and square brain can become so delicate, which shocked me greatly at that time.

Many of the electrical appliances my father bought were imported from Germany and Japan. Compared with the domestic products with single style and rough appearance at that time, I had a hazy understanding of product design. I want to create something like this.

▲ Students' Works-Faucet

Xiao Xiang: What are the sources of inspiration for your daily design? How do you accumulate materials?

Hu Haoxiang: Observe more, go out more and experience different cultures and lives.

Every year, one month must be taken for a walk at home and abroad. When Japan received the award, it felt that Japanese design was everywhere, from tableware spoons to urban environmental planning, all of which reflected the details of the design and brought deep shock.

Many museums and exhibitions abroad are worth seeing.

▲ Erik for Backpack Travel

▲ Intelligent toothbrush sterilizer

Xiao Xiang: Have you encountered any bottlenecks in your previous design work? If so, how did you solve it?

Hu Haoxiang: The most impressive thing is the first product design after entering Oclean. This product is a cooperation between Oclean and a century-old oral care brand.

Before, I also thought that the design of electric toothbrush would be very simple, that is, motor plus shell and brush head. But for the first time, a comprehensive study of toothbrush usage scenarios. Including picking up, holding in your hand, squeezing toothpaste, opening, using, ending, putting back, and brushing your teeth. Each link enlarges and loops, looking for new design entry points in inconspicuous movements.

It is very difficult to design an electric toothbrush. It has many restrictions, such as waterproof and motor size affecting the product shape, battery size affecting the structural design, key material, will affect the use experience, the line of the fuselage will affect the anti-skid comfort; the limitation of the production process will affect the concept of landing, in various restrictions, to design a distinctive new design, was my biggest challenge at that time.

Later, as a user of a product, I experienced the process of using it over and over again, and summarized the various problems obtained in the process of using it. Through decomposition, these problems are solved one by one.

▲ Electric toothbrush travel box

Xiao Xiang: What do you think is the overall atmosphere of domestic product design and how is it different from foreign countries?

Hu Haoxiang: At present, I feel that domestic borrowing is more prevalent. Because of the tight time, designing a product in a short time lacks in-depth investigation process. Often two new models go on sale on Monday.

Oclean adheres to the principle of originality, practicality and beauty. Every new product starts from 0, so our product iteration is not fast in the domestic industry, but each product must be a classic. It is also because of this that after our products are launched, they are often used for reference by friends.

▲ Packaging of Electric Toothbrush Head

Xiao Xiang: As the winner of the two-time Red Dot Supreme Award, what experience can I share?

Hu Haoxiang: All designs are not out of thin air. Every line and every function has a basis source. The innovation point is different, but it is not different in pursuit of different, but form accompanying function.

▲ 2019 red dot supreme award-Kiwi TV Box

▲ 2018 Red Dot Supreme Award-Edge TV Box

Xiao Xiang: Finally, can you give some suggestions to students studying industrial design or studying abroad?

Hu Haoxiang: If you study abroad, you will soon find that foreign schools and domestic schools have very different requirements for your study.

In China, schools focus on skill-based learning and training, relatively speaking, they do not attach much importance to research and design thinking. In foreign countries, teachers pay more attention to the rationality of design and the combination of theory and practice. Coupled with the difference in language, it means that we have to start over.

The ability of self-study is very important. More importantly, you love the major of industrial design and the process of solving problems. It is very difficult to learn industrial design. Never stop learning.


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