Introduction: Chinese design is making rapid progress with an advanced and cultural approach

Kuramoto: Applications from China to the Good Design Award have been growing year on year, and this year there was an even bigger increase than last year. The improvement in quality of the applications is also worthy of special mention.
Especially in the consumer electronics and precision equipment categories, a number of major Chinese firms have grown into global businesses and improved their products to a high level, and other manufacturers and brands following those global firms have been practicing high quality design and product planning.
The products are beautifully and conscientiously manufactured down to the finest detail, and proposals for new materials are actively being pursued, giving rise to application items that were characteristic of China, which is sometimes known as the world's factory.

As can be seen with the evolution of e-commerce, cashless systems, and the spread of smart electronic appliances, people's lifestyles are evolving to become ultramodern, and there were also proposals for products and services that apply specific concepts to address the social issues that arise in connection to this.
Another big feature of the China screening board was that we saw several applications for awareness programs, which involved major firms taking the initiative to tackle environmental issues. While it may be a part of the company's PR, by getting the huge population that lives in China to participate in these services and activities, it has already produced big results and achievements, and you can surmise the high level of consumer interest.
The country of China has made big progress in terms of the global economy, and the China screening board clearly felt that it was also implementing an advanced and cultural approach in its development of products and services.

Electronic Piggy Bank [Little Can] (GOOD DESIGN BEST100)

Shi: I think this product is symbolic of China today. Many products were seen in the Hong Kong venue that were geared towards the lifestyles of people inside China, and this design conveys the aim of getting children to learn the habit of saving up their pocket money. China is progressing into a cashless society and the use of cash is becoming rarer and rarer, so there is little point in making a real piggy bank in China now.
I think the main point of this product is that it uses a new way to encourage the learning of a good habit. This is technology being used as the right tool in the right place.
You can compare it with another product, for example when they put out the first generation of the Tesla electric car, as it's an electric car it doesn't need a front grille to allow air to enter, but when they got rid of that structure and shape, general consumers thought "this isn't a car, it's strange." So, the first generation of Tesla electric cars continued with the traditional shape of cars. However, the next generation of Teslas started to depart from the characteristic shape of what a car should be, and the consumers' level of acceptance has also increased.
This product also has the physical shape of a piggy bank, as it might have not been accepted by consumers from the start if it was just an app. As a matter of fact, this product has been accepted by consumers in its physical form, has tested out digitization technology, and ultimately preserved a traditional custom. It's the embodiment of a product that accepts the past while welcoming the future.

Kuramoto: I think this product is really interesting. This time, there were eight judges in total at the screening board in Hong Kong, with four from Japan and four from China. All of the Chinese judges were in favor of recommending this product to be a candidate for the Best 100, but all the Japanese judges didn't really understand it and didn't raise their hands. After that, the Chinese judges gave an explanation and the Japanese judges understood the merit of this product, so everyone agreed to recommend it for the Best 100. I think that the Good Design Award's screening system that allows thorough discussions like this is really good.

Smart Home Control Platform [Mi Home /Xiaomi Home] (GOOD DESIGN BEST100)

Kuramoto: This is another product that symbolizes China now. Looking at the services provided by the Xiaomi company, or the platform of IoT products, they truly allow you to get a real sense of China at this point of time. Chinese consumers' lives are all becoming rich together, and it's become an extremely big market.
Western and Japanese companies have leading brands in huge markets, but I think that among brands coming out of China from here on, the Xiaomi Corporation may be the first to be a leading brand in future big markets. If Xiaomi goes into areas with big populations like Indonesia, Brazil and Africa, it may be tremendously successful in those countries.

Packaging Structure Design [One Paper Box] (GOOD DESIGN BEST100)

Shi: This system design is also by the Xiaomi Corporation. This item made a very deep impression on us and we discussed it for a very long time. It's an extremely outstanding system design, and we realized that it wasn't designed for just one product. What's difficult about packaging design is that the packing structure differs depending on the product, but under these limitations, Xiaomi unified the concept so that a structure from one piece of paper was used to solve the packaging problem for products from as many fields as possible. What we saw was a paper packaging system, but inside Xiaomi, they are surely already using design to raise their strategic level. Using a single piece of paper for a packaging system is by no means new, as many other industries, such as the shoes sector, always use this type of packaging. What is outstanding is that the packaging is unified so that the same system can be used for each product, and the brand identification is also excellent.

Kuramoto: There are two wonderful aspects to this. The first is its consideration of environmental issues, and the second is its concept of returning profits.
In regard to the returning of profits, Xiaomi has declared that it will return all profits above a certain set level to its consumers. There are companies like this all over the world, but I was very impressed by this approach of thinking up various ways and designs to increase corporate profits, with more being given back to consumers and society as they earned more profits.

Conclusion: China is using the experience it has accumulated as the world's factory to blossom

Shi: "Made in China" has now risen to an extremely high level. China also has a major national plan called the "Made in China 2025." The applications we saw in the Hong Kong venue were also extremely good from the manufacturing industry perspective. If you compared them with the products at the Tokyo venue, there was no difference in quality and some things were superior to those made in Japan.
I felt there were two main differences between the screening boards in Japan and China.
The first was that there were many IoT product applications in Hong Kong, in accordance with current developments in the Chinese market, and embodying a familiar lifestyle within China. In comparison, there were relatively few Japanese made IoT products at the Japanese venue, and I got the impression that there were many traditional items.
The second difference is the user centered philosophy. For example, for products in China a relatively cost-effective cost performance is required, and they make very good products on a reasonably cost-effective basis. As there is a series of mature manufacturing chains within China, cost performance can be considered as an important point. I don't think this is found in Japanese products. The cost performance is ultimately returned to the consumer. In China there is an extremely large number of excellent products made at a limited cost, and these manufacturing industry accomplishments cannot be separated from the experience China has accumulated these past few years as the world's factory.

Kuramoto: There were so many electronic appliances entries at this screening venue that I thought that maybe we were looking at all the electrical appliances in the world. In particular, there was an extremely large number of mobile telephones, smartphones and headphones.
We saw many Chinese products that were at a higher level than Japanese products in terms of aspects like design and manufacturing techniques. As expected, places making things in the real world are the ones that progress the most. That's why I want a world leading product brand to come out of China. I think that before long a company will come out of China that is similar to companies like Apple or Tesla, where everything is combined together, including product development, quality, branding and design. I have been going to China for work for a long time, and actually I'm off to Shenzhen tomorrow, and I get the real feeling that, due to the high quality of their manufacturing, it's just a matter of time before world leading brands emerge from China.