Foreign Ceramics Designers Can Finish The Negotiation Work

It is known from the interview of designers of Esmalglass-Itaca Group of Spain and experts of the ceramics industry that the difference between the Chinese and Spanish ceramics design is mainly reflected in market investigation, combination of Chinese and Western ceramics design and design level. Fan Jinsong, vice president of Ceramics (Jewel) Art Design of Art Design College, Foshan University, pointed out that, "The Chinese ceramics design is still in the beginning stage. " Early-Stage Market Investigation Shall be Valued With the emergence and development of ink-jet ceramics in China, ceramics enterprises have increasingly strict requirements on design. Foreign ceramics designers cannot meet the taste of the Chinese customers without professional market investigation. According to the introduction of Jamie, director of the design department of Esmalglass-Itaca in China, the market investigation of their group usually includes searching information from furniture industry, clothes industry and other different industries, attending important exhibitions of ceramics industry, and so on. She added that ways of market investigation may be different due to the different needs of customers and markets. "At times, brand-new design plans may be developed and the design of ceramics may be adjusted. " Fan Jinsong said that because of paying attention to market investigation, foreign ceramics designers can finish the negotiation work in the early stage more easily than Chinese ceramics designers. Jamie said that "As we offer our customers many kinds of design plans, the design plans can be confirmed by customers more quickly. " It is learned that compared with most Chinese designers who just offer designs of products, foreign ceramics de-signers attach more attention to offer de-sign service and provide various solutions for different customers. Generally, the procedure of Esmalglass-Itaca offering design service is: know the needs of customers—offer a complete set of design plans—obtain confirmation of customers through communication — help customers develop and test products—customers confirm products—help customers put on production. The Difference Between Cultures Influence The Effect Of Design Due to the difference between Chinese and foreign markets of ceramics in various aspects, the demands of customers on products are also different. Jamie thought that there is no big difference between China and Spain in terms of the popular tile size and design materials. While the two countries both focus on warm colors, Spain is more mature in the application of colors and more daring in the development of products. "Spanish ceramics shows European style and is very bold in expression; however, ceramics of strong color contrast may be hard to be received in the market of China some-times. " Fan Jinsong stated that owning to the impact of different cultural back-ground, foreign ceramics designers can not fully understand the culture and history of China, so the ceramics designed by them are still tainted with Western style regardless of well-prepared market investigation. Just as Jamie said, "We have been keeping close contact with the headquarters of Spain and will merge the latest information into the development of our products. " The phenomenon that Chinese and Western culture cannot integrate very well also occurs during the process of Chinese ceramics designers'borrowing foreign ceramics design cases, making most ceramics lack Chinese cultural elements and characteristics. Improve Design Level From Various Aspects Jamie believed that the key to the success of the ceramics design was achieving good response in the market and being accepted widely first of all; be-sides good design level and applaudable performance in research and development technology, designers also need broad horizon, strong ability to analyze and gasp the market and the capability to demonstrate their products well. Although designers of China and Spain both have different cultural back-ground and education level, Chinese ceramics designers, as stated by Fan Jin-song, have narrower scope of knowledge and lack of innovative thinking. By contrast, foreign ceramics designers have knowledge of many fields and are clearer about design, color, pattern, technology and application effect of the products. "Some designers fail to consider things from the aspect of the market and customers and design products according to people's current consumption habits, resulted in the ceramics unaccepted by ceramics enterprises. " "In order to reduce the gap between the design of Chinese and foreign ceramics, joint efforts are necessary, including conducting reform of education, promoting the communication and cooperation between Chinese and foreign ceramics designers, and so on", Fan Jin-song said. Source: fstcb.com